LAHORE: Punjab Minister for Finance, Excise and Taxation Mian Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman declared that levy of proposed GST on private schools, charging more than Rs5,000 fee per student, had been deferred until next budget.
The minister made the remarks at a conference organized by All Pakistan Private Schools Management Association (APPSMA) ‘apparently’ in bid to placate the representatives of Private Schools who criticised the government for what they called unjust taxes. The representatives criticised the ordinance according to which all private schools which are charging more than Rs5,000 fee per student will have to impart free education to 10 per cent of enrolled children.
The minister replied that that those private schools which earn a lot of money by charging heavy fee should pay taxes.
The minister also shed light on the government’s efforts to provide affordable education facilities to the public at large, saying that in line with public-private partnership, the Punjab Education Foundation has initiated the process of what he called ‘adopting’ private schools whereby it pays for the fee of a certain number of deserving students, provide them free books and also arranges for training of teachers.
This programme has now spread to 36 districts across Punjab incorporating over 3,500 schools where more than 1.5 million students are being given free education, he said adding that this year the Punjab government intends to jack this number up to two million.
Saying that in Lahore there are 1,200 government run schools and 5,000 private schools, the minister explained that rather than building up new schools from the scratch, the government was focusing on helping the private schools through helping students financially.
There are 800 non-functional government schools across Punjab which are in the process of being restored, he said.
He also said that because of provincial setup’s attention towards existing government-run schools across Punjab, the teachers’ presence has risen up to 80 percent, which he hoped would further increase in the days to come. He added that the government has recruited 140000 teachers to improve teacher-student ratio. He was of the view that teacher-student ratio should not be more than 40 students per class.
The minister also said that the government had been able to control the drop-out rate from class one to grade five. He also clarified that there has not been any decrease in the number of government schools explaining that this impression has generated because the government has been merging primary and middle schools existing in the same locality so as to facilitate the students and families.
