If you toss and turn in bed worrying about the high capitation fee, running into lakhs of rupees, at your child's international school, help is on its way.
The state government, which has already cleared the Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Regulation of Collection of Fee) Act, 2011, is waiting for the President's nod to enforce it in international schools.
Informing the Bombay High Court of the pace of development, the additional government pleader said, "Both the houses of the state assembly and the council have voted in its favour and now, it has been sent to the President of India, which, as per my instructions, is pending."
Based on the government's statement, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice R S Dalvi disposed of a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by an NGO, Forum for Fairness in Education, which had asked for a probe into the financial affairs of all international schools in Maharashtra.
The PIL pointed at the imbalance in fees charged by various international schools. While the Ecole Mondiale World (EMW) School, the Witty International School and the Aditya Birla World Academy (ABWA) charge Rs5,000 for processing the admission form for the pre-primary, the Jankidevi Public School and the Sharad Pawar International School take Rs7,000 and Rs5,500, respectively, for the same for classes I to X and junior college. The scales are also lopsided when it comes to admission fee.
Naming 19 such schools, the forum said they ask parents to shell out a hefty security deposit of as much as Rs2.50 lakh, even in the case of pre-primary and primary students.
It asked for CM Prithviraj Chavan's directives to all international schools to refund all capitation fee. The bench assured the NGO that its plea will be looked into once the Act is enforced.
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