KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has directed the provincial authorities to amend the relevant law about admission of orphans to private schools and colleges and to allocate Rs100 million annually for the welfare of such children, it emerged on Saturday.

The SHC also asked all the orphanages to get themselves registered immediately under the orphanage law and ordered the secretary for the social welfare department to convene orphanage board meetings quarterly and submit a report with the minutes to the court.

A single bench of the SHC headed by Justice Salahuddin Panhwar observed that keeping in view the alarming position regarding well-being of orphans residing in private orphanages, said directives were being issued to improve their capacity-building from their teenage years.

The bench asked the provincial law officer and the social welfare department secretary to pursue amendments in the relevant law regarding admission of orphans to private schools and colleges and sought a compliance report by May 13.

It also asked the authorities concerned to allocate Rs100m annually, as demanded by the relevant department, as an endowment fund and increase it as per a decision of the board.

The bench further observed that all orphanages must improve the standard of formal and vocational education and make efforts to modernise their education system at primary and secondary levels, leading to college and university education in a manner that it must eventually benefit children.

The orphanages must also send the eligible children to the government and private education system and the management of private education may be directed to waive educational expenses for orphans as part of their corporate social responsibility, it added.

In the last hearing, the bench had directed the provincial authorities to ensure that all orphanage houses, working under the government or semi-government or NGOs, must be supervised under one umbrella according to the Sindh Orphanages (Supervision and Control) Act, 1976 and also asked the Sindh chief secretary and the social welfare department secretary to call reports from across the province regarding safe houses/places specific for orphans.

The compliance report, submitted by the social welfare secretary, said that the department was now doing its level best to implement all the provisions of the relevant law and to achieve such objectives, adding that the orphanage board had been constituted and the minimum standards for functioning of orphanages had been prepared and circulated.

An advertisement was given in the leading newspapers advising the management of all orphanages run by private entities to get themselves registered as required under the law, it said and added that the government of Sindh had been asked to allocate Rs100m as an endowment fund for the welfare of orphans in the province and the funds will be re-utilised through the orphanage board.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2019