HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad Public School (HPS) management has proposed a steep fee hike of 30-40 per cent to meet the demand of its teachers for a pay increase. While the move has gone down well with the teachers who had gone on a strike some time back demanding a hike in their salaries, the parents are not happy.
The school informed the parents at a meeting which was held this week about the inevitability of a fee hike. However, the parents’ body, which is meeting on Saturday, would be allowed to decide on the exact percentage of the hike. Both the branches of HPS - Begumpet and Ramanthapur — are planning to hike the fee, parents said. Meanwhile, the angry parents have decided to approach the school education department, which has issued a GO banning any unauthorised increase in fee. “Such a huge increase in fee is unacceptable. The managements are flouting all state government rules to hike fee,” said the parent of a HPS student. Many parents said that they would have to shift their children to other schools if the management goes ahead with the fee hike. With the average fee per annum in HPS being Rs 50,000, an increase by 40 per cent would be over 20,000, the parents rued. “We might just have to chuck the ‘prestigious’ HPS and admit our children to less expensive schools. A 40 per cent hike becomes a serious problem if more than one child from a family is studying in HPS,” a parent said, adding that while the final decision has been left to the parents, they wonder if the management would agree to their demand for no hike. Due to the teachers’ strike, the school had tweaked the timetable to reduce the number of teaching hours for almost two months. The school had also extended Dasara and Diwali holidays during the teachers’ strike.
When contacted, the HPS authorities said that they would have to increase the fee as the management had come to an agreement with the teachers on salary hike. “If the teachers’ demand for pay hike were to be met, there is no alternative but to raise the fees. The parents can decide on the percentage of hike. We can only say that the hike has to be 15-20 per cent anyhow,” said Alokesh Sen, principal, HPS. He said the board has still not finalised the percentage of fee hike and this will be decided next week.
However, the parents alleged that the school was trying to make quick bucks by hiking the fee as most of the amount would go only into the management’s coffers.
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