Recently, the Sindh government officially declared an “education emergency”. with several reforms and changes being announced to make public education accessible to many.
As part of its recent education reforms, the Sindh government announced that it will bear all educational expenses for students enrolled in public sector colleges.
However, despite the official announcement, several of these changes aren’t being implemented as they are supposed to be.
The Sindh government issued a notification in April, saying that the fee for registrations, admissions and examinations for Matric, and Intermediate level students will be handled by the government.
However in Karachi, it has been witnessed that many students are still being made to pay their fees as usual.
A pre-medical student at Government College for Women at Sharae-e-Liaquat says,
I went to the college, purchased a form for Rs60 and submitted the fee of Rs540 at Sindh Bank, as instructed by the college administration.
Her friends from the commerce section in the same college have also paid for their admission fee. The last date for submitting admission forms is July 20th. With limited time remaining, students are clamoring to complete the process and don’t want to risk missing out on college for an year.
Another pre-medical student from DJ Science College also experienced a similar problem. He said that the college had issued admission forms but wasn’t letting them submit the forms on Thursday.
He continued:
The admin officer asked us to come back on Monday as they were (also) confused whether to charge the fee or not.
The College Education Secretary Parvez Ahmed Seehar on the other hand is clear about the provincial government’s stance on this. Mr. Parvez said that colleges are barred from taking any kind of fee from the students, and that all violators will have strict action taken against them.
The regional director of colleges was ordered by the secretary to notice the complaints and report to him on Monday.
