Why list of schools for fee hike not yet ready?

Further, this list should be available to all the private schools and can be referred to as a benchmark for the upgrading of facilities.

This list would serve as a fair evaluation for schools that can hike their tuition fee. But to be frank, why was this list not issued up to now, and in spite of the delay its issuance, why is the ministry still giving approval to some schools to hike their fee with no list to serve as a reference point?

Just recently, the ministry okayed the proposal of the Al Khaleej Private School to hike its fee by about 20 per cent. We want to know why is the ministry in such a hurry to give approval for such schools without waiting to issue the list.

We concede we are not the authority to judge whether the school deserves to hike its tuition fee or not, but we did write in the April 28 edition of ‘Khaleej Times’ that the ministry must withhold all approvals till the list is issued. After that, the ministry can deal with all school applications in an equal, fair and unbiased manner, according to the standards spelt out in the list.

We stressed that the ministry must avoid a situation where after a school gets the approval to hike its fee, it is discovered that the school standards fall far below the ones mentioned in the list.