By Syed Tauqeer Zaidi
DERA ISMAIL KHAN: The Private Education Network (PEN) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has strongly condemned the Labour Department’s issuance of heavy fines and notices worth millions of rupees to private educational institutions, calling it state oppression and a blatant attack on education.
PEN Pakistan’s Provincial President Saleem Khan and Deputy General Secretary Sardar Muhammad Arsalan Sadozai said private schools across the province are being systematically targeted. They claimed the campaign aims to pressure schools, create unrest, and force protests against the government, describing the actions as “unbearable and unacceptable.”
The leadership emphasised that schools are not factories but guardians of the nation’s intellectual future. Imposing industrial laws and fines on educational institutions, they said, threatens education and the prospects of future generations.
Saleem Khan added that the Labour Minister had previously assured PEN that such actions would stop, but continued enforcement shows either the minister’s words carry no weight or that bureaucracy has become more powerful than the government—both alarming developments.
PEN warned that if harassment continues against even a single school, private institutions across KP will stage protests. They urged the Chief Minister, Chief Secretary, and other officials to immediately withdraw all illegal notices and remove schools from the scope of industrial laws. Failure to do so, they said, could lead to province-wide protests, sit-ins, and shutter-down strikes, for which the government would bear responsibility.
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