April 12, 2012

Parents to protest fee hike in schools

New Delhi, Ap[ril 8 2012, DHNS:

SC set up a committee to bring uniformity
Parents whose children study in private schools are feeling the heat due to ‘arbitrary hike’ of school fee every academic year.

The members of All India Parents Association (AIPA) held a meeting on Sunday to discuss the action plan to put a stop on fee hike.

“Almost all the schools increase their fees every academic year ranging from 10-40 per cent. We are planning to stage a demonstration in front of the office of the Directorate of Education to take immediate steps to stop this menace,” said I S Gambhir, president, AIPA. The Delhi unit of AIPA has decided that all the parents of unaided private schools shall not pay hiked fee and other charges to schools and would continue to pay fees and other charges at old rates.

“It is unfortunate that despite Delhi High Court’s order in favour of the parents on arbitrary fee hike, the schools are flouting the same with impunity and the DoE instead of taking action against the schools is practically protecting the mighty and the greedy managements of the unaided private schools,” said Ashok Agarwal, AIPA national president.

The meeting was chaired by Ashok Agarwal and attended by the parents’ representatives of over 40 unaided private schools.

To look into the fee hike issue, the Supreme Court has recently set up a committee to bring uniformity in the fee structure.

“The committee is still taking up the cases of the 21 school petitioners. The final decision is yet to arrive. Since there is no strict body to oversee the fee hikes, each school comes up with their own rules. This problem of sudden fee hike started after the 6th pay commission recommendation in 2011. Some schools increased the fees by 50 per cent, some even have even increased it by 100 per cent,” said Khagesh Jha, an advocate.

The whole idea behind starting private schools on government land was of community service, with no intentions of profiteering, said Jha. “Increasing the fee is not compulsory. In fact, in a recent ruling in Ramjas School the court ordered the school to lower the existing fee,” added Jha.
 

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