Saifee College in a quandary

Students challenge privatisation of institute by Sindh government

KARACHI: After a long legal battle over the custody of historic Islamia College between the Trust and students, another institute in Karachi has come under the spotlight for being privatised and raising fees structure beyond the reach of poor students.

Five petitioners claiming to be the students of Saifee Technical College in North Nazimabad have approached the Sindh High Court, challenging the handing over of the institute to Saifee Golden Jubilee Educational Trust, owned by the Dawoodi Bohra community.

The petitioners claimed that they got admission in the Diploma of Associate Engineering in 2019 and 2020 batches and completed their first and second years of education at the college. Now they learnt that the college management had been handed over to the trust along with the land on which it was constructed.

However, the trust in its reply to the petition question locus standi of the petitioner denying that they are students of the college.

An authorised representative of the trust, Qaizar Younus, in the reply stated that earlier the college building and land were vested with the Sindh Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (STEVTA) which was operating Saifee Eide Zahabi Institute of Technology commonly known as Saifee Technical College.

According to Younus, the trust has a clear title of college property, located at Allama Rasheed Turabi Road in Block G of North Nazimabad.

The provincial government under an agreement on December 23, 2020, between the trust and the STEVTA, handed over the college management along with the building and land to the trust. The same was earlier approved by the Sindh cabinet on the recommendation of the cabinet’s sub-committee and the legal advice from the Advocate General of Sindh. The premises of the college has been transferred exclusively to be used for educational, research and associated activities.

According to Younus, the current students enrolled in the college would continue to be retained as per the fee prescribed by the trust which has no intention of expelling or removing any student from the roll or register, except for reasons within the applicable laws and policies.

The agreement between the trust and STEVTA, he claims, is according to the provisions of the Sindh Technical Education and Vocation Training Authority Act of 2009 which bars any criminal and civil litigation against the government or the authority or any person related to the institutions being run under the STEVTA Act.

Dawood Bhora community’s educational institutions have been established all over the world to impart quality education, training and capacity building without any discrimination. According to Younus, thousands of students of all social and religious backgrounds have benefited from the community’s educational institution in Pakistan as well.

The petition, alleges Younus, has been filed merely to harass and pressurise official and private respondents as the petitioners have failed to establish that the respondents have violated any provision of law and thus cannot invoke constitutional jurisdiction of the court.

The legislation governing technical education and training in the province does not bar private institutions from imparting technical education. Rather, it facilitates public-private collaboration for the furtherance of technical education and vocational training which indicates that the agreement is within the spirit of the law, states Younus.

Arguing the case of petitioners before an SHC bench, the counsel advocate Usman Farooq contended that neither the minutes of the cabinet’s meeting nor its sub-committee discloses what prompted the government to privatise an institution imparting technical education and vocational training to underprivileged students at a nominal fee.

According to him, the trust that runs the institute as a private entity has raised its tuition fee to thousands which a poor student cannot afford to pay. Like usual education, technical education is being made hard for the poor, as Saifee College is the only boys’ technical education institution in District Central.

He argued that free education has been accepted as a fundamental right in the constitution and the government is bound to strive for the provision of free education to the people of the country. The privatisation of the government education institutions, he said, is a violation of fundamental rights.

The agreement between the trust and the STEVTA, provides no mechanism to fix fees for the various courses being taught at the institution and trust. The court after the hearing took the reply of the trust on record and directed the petitioners to file a counter-reply and deferred the hearing till January 10 next year.

Photo: athar khan/Bol News