Letters: Private schools fleecing parents

Private schools fleecing parents
This is to bring to the notice of Ministry of Education that few private schools in Jeddah are fleecing parents in the name of education. They are bringing a bad name to this noble profession and some of them don’t even care a bit about children’s future.
I had a very terrible experience while trying to get my daughter readmitted in one of the schools in Sharfiyah, Jeddah. My daughter was studying there earlier from September 2011 until March 2012 when she had to go with her mother to India due to medical reasons. At the time of taking out my daughter from the school, I was told by the school authorities that I can get her readmitted in the school after she comes back from India by paying the readmission fee of SR 50 only.
I took her to the school after they reopened last week to get her readmitted and I was shocked to hear that they have changed the rules and according to the new policy readmission has been scrapped and I would have to pay the full fee SR 800 (new admission) to get my daughter admitted in the school. As I was very much shocked and not prepared for this it took a while for me to arrange for the money and when I went back to pay the money and get my daughter new admission, I was told that the seats are full. The principal misbehaved with my wife when she told her, how can they do this after making us run after them for a week.
I request the concerned authorities to look into this. — Shoukath Khan, Jeddah

Imran Khan’s journey
This is in reference to the column “Imran Khan: A journey from a cricket legend to a popular politician.” I would like to extend my best wishes to Imran Khan who is now a popular politician in Pakistan and the author, an eminent journalist. It was a pleasure reading the article. It was really considerable of you interviewing such a great personality and to write a fantastic article on him. The article is very informative and I liked the fact how positively you expressed your assessment of a great personality. I really appreciate your effort and such efforts may continue in a similar way for other Pakistani politicians. — Niaz Ahmed, Riyadh

Municipal elections
In a democratic setup there are three tiers of governance — central, provincial (or states) and local/municipal governments. Unfortunately in Pakistan, baring a few, most of the political parties believe in first two tiers while for the third one they prefer bureaucracy to take care. In my opinion, this third tier of municipal/city governments is far more important as it allows direct participation of general public at town/village level. This tier is directly responsible for upkeep of the cities and towns, however, our political parties prefer to run the towns and cities by unelected administrators and commissioners. By doing so, there is no love lost for the poor public and it’s a way to keep the bureaucracy under the thumb of governing political party (ies) in that province.
It’s now over three years since the previously elected local/city governments were dissolved at the end of their tenure, but no one knows when there will be elections for new municipal setup. All the provincial governments have chosen to ignore the advice from the Supreme Court and high courts to hold the city/municipal governments’ elections without any further delay.
All provinces, barring Sindh, have carried out legislation to abolish the local governments systems, have replaced them with commissionarate system. In Sindh, both the coalition partners — PPP and MQM have held a marathon of meetings (may be more than 100 meetings) during last three years to discuss the future setup for city government with no obvious breakthrough. Just few days back, on President Asif Ali Zardari’s interference, these two parties have agreed upon a system more near to the one established during Musharraf era.
Both the PPP and the MQM have been claiming to have reached a consensus but I have reservation on this development. If we go by the history, it may be tactical move by the PPP to pacify the MQM and then by doing so first postpone the upcoming general elections and later get away with city government elections as well putting up any excuse.
The MQM shall be aware that none of the political parties (whether in government or in opposition) are ready to see Karachi city government being handed over to the MQM, therefore, it’s up to the MQM whether to be pacified with lollypops the PPP would be offering, or keep struggling for the third tier governance all across the country. I see not much hope having a turnaround in our political parties thinking, therefore, should we agree with British colonial system to run the cities by commissioners. Perhaps this is the fate of a democratic Pakistan
— Masood Khan, Jubail