Explain why panel on school fee hike not notified yet: HC to Govt

NEW DELHI: Accusing the state government of deliberate delay in empowering a Delhi high court-appointed panel tasked with carrying out audit of private schools, a parents' association on Friday moved HC, seeking implementation of its orders.

The association blamed the government of being slack in notifying the committee, and alleged that it had not even begun the job of providing the committee with manpower to serve its purpose.

A division bench of Justice A K Sikri and Justice Siddharth Mridul issued notice to the government, seeking its reply by September 9. Earlier, the same bench had issued directions to set up a committee headed by former judge Anil Dev Singh to audit the accounts of each of the schools to ascertain if the hike was required. The bench authorized the committee to scrutinize the accounts of minority schools, too. That order had come on a PIL, which alleged that despite CAG's indictment of 25 private schools for accounting malpractices, including faking losses, the city government had allowed them to hike tuition fee.

"If the committee finds that the hike was not required, the schools are bound to return the money to students with 9% interest," the bench had said in a 143-page verdict on August 12. The committee also comprises J S Kochar, a chartered accountant, and an official from the Directorate of Education, to be nominated by the Delhi chief secretary.

Counsel for the parents, Ashok Aggarwal, told the court he is apprehensive about the committee facing resistance and non co-operation from the state government akin to the Justice Santosh Duggal Committee, which had led to "great injustice to lakhs of hapless parents". He urged HC to fast-track the process of notification of the committee so that audit of schools could be carried out to verify if hike in fee by them is justified.

In its judgment, the court had also suggested to the city government to create a permanent regulatory authority, either by amending the Education Act or by enacting a new legislation, to resolve the issue of periodic hikes in tuition fee. It also suggested the Central government to frame a national policy on fees for unaided schools.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Explain-why-panel-on-school-fee-hike-not-notified-yet-HC-to-Govt/articleshow/9842566.cms

State edu ministers set up panel on extension of RTE to class 10

NEW DELHI: HRD ministry's move to extend Right to Education till class 10 got the unanimous approval of the Central Advisory Board of Education on Tuesday.

CABE at its meeting also approved two others proposals of the ministry: a new law to prohibit unfair practices by schools and a National Vocation Education Qualifications Framework (NVEQF).

In case of extension of RTE, providing for 10 years of free education, CABE set up a committee consisting of state ministers, educationists and members of civil society to formulate the draft legislation within three months. While giving their consent for extension of RTE, many state ministers pointed out how lack of funds was creating problems in the implementation of free and compulsory education till class eight.

As for the new law on unfair practices, HRD minister Kapil Sibal said a similar legislation for higher education is with the Standing Committee of Parliament. Ministers of most states agreed that there was a need for such a legislation because of the increasing trend of use of unfair practices in schools. Again, a CABE committee consisting of state ministers, members of civil society and educationists was set up to thrash out the issue.

Explaining the rationale behind the new law, a senior ministry official made a presentation listing out growing reports of malpractices like demand for donations, refusal of admission, non-refund of fees, over-charging, fee collection without receipt, short payment to teachers and staff and commercialization. The proposed law will make it mandatory for schools to publish the prospectus giving out all the details about physical infrastructure, admission process, number of seats, teachers and their qualifications. It will proposes to make unfair practices punishable, by imposing a penalty as well as criminal prosecution.

The vocational education roadmap would be developed by a group of state education ministers. State governments have been asked to identify regional and local skills and develop curriculum content to be fed into the framework. The courses chosen should be locally specific to be implemented through plans devised by the states, which would be woven into a national grid within the parameters of NVEQF.

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/New-Article/articleshow/8769307.cms

CAG report exposes greediness of Private schools.

We've believed & have been vocal in many forums that most school are practising schooling as money minting business, run under the societies act & accredited to many bodies with almost no compliance to any of the clauses of the laws.

We've been raising our voice & did see some support from Government as well as High Court, but lost out in the confusion there upon. New academic session is starting in next few months/weeks, all schools have raised the fee for the next academic session without any proper reasoning nor fear of anyt one.

CBSE on 22nd Feb, 2011 has released a circular to all its affiliated schools across India clearly stating that they can't hike fee's at their whims & fancies, but follow the process. Who would ever say any legitimate raise in fee is a hike ? We're only objecting to the practises being followed by greedy managements hiking fee's for no reasons, just to fill in their bags !

Click below & read the CAG report for your self, which talks about the audit findings on schools in NCR reagion. Mind its no different else where in India.

http://saiindia.gov.in/cag/sites/default/files/study_reports/Final_Books_agcr.pdf

When Tamil nadu government went ahead on defining the school fee, school wise after audit, similar findings were found. They went ahead unlike any other State Government & dictated the fee schools need to collect. This was done with no intrusion to a private enterprise, but to make sure schooling is not commercialised. This was the very basis on which our High Court upheld the order in favour of GoAP & Parents last August. Today there are many such cases pending with HC or State Governments in Maharastra, Goa, Haryana, UP, Uttaranchal, MP etc states across India.

Time for us to demand what is right or in pure commercial terms "what is true value of money we're paying for". Mind you, we're not demanding out of greed or frustration but to make sure the education (basic right of a child) is within the reach of common man in India - today, tomorrow & fr ever.

Your support alone can make this happen.

Demand for what is right for your children

Join, Spread & Raise your voice !

Notices issued to 25 pvt schools indicted by CAG, DoE tells HC

New Delhi, Mar 18 (PTI) The Directorate of Education (DoE) of Delhi government today told the Delhi High Court that notices were issued to 25 unaided private schools here following their indictment by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) for accounting malpractices including faking the loss.

"We (DoE) have already issued notices to 25 erring schools," the counsel, appearing for the schools'' regulator, told a bench of Justices A K Sikri and Sidhharth Mridul said.

The DoE said the show cause notices were issued in pursuance of the CAG''s report relating to financial year of 2006 to 2009.

Meanwhile, Ashok Aggarwal, counsel for the ''Delhi Abhibhavak Mahasangh'', sought an investigation by an agency like CBI into the irregularities pointed out by the CAG in the report.

"The CAG reports reveals not only several accounting malpractices but commission of criminal offences. Some agency like CBI be asked to investigate into it," Aggarwal said.

Advancing the arguments, he said "as the new academic year is about to commence, the schools, which faked the loss, be restrained from raising fee as it is next to impossible to get it (hike) rolled back. Now, it is established that they are earning profits."

http://in.news.yahoo.com/notices-issued-25-pvt-schools-indicted-cag-doe-20110318-064400-316.html

Dont charge development fee, private school told

GURGAON: A long battle of parents against Chiranjeev Bharti School in Gurgaon over developmental fee has ended into a pyrrhic victory of sorts for them as the school has been ordered to not to take the monthly development fee of Rs 1600. However, the bigger question of whether private schools can charge such a fee in a different manner continues to remain unaddressed. 

Sanjeev Yadav, who led the fight against the private school in Palam Vihar, said that he was happy with the new order but will celebrate only once the development fee collected by the school in the past was returned to the parents. 

We are happy that the school now can not charge developmental fee but what about the money that we have paid so far, said Yadav who mobilised the parents and collected signatures from 500 parents for the campaign. My three children study in this school and in past ten years I have paid over Rs 40,000 as developmental fee in addition to the other charges, he added. 

On the basis of parents complaints, the issue was brought up in the public grievance committee meeting on November 16 where minister for Power Mahender Partap Singh ordered the school to stop charging the fee from the next academic session and adjust the charges taken this year proportionately into the fee in future. Earlier, the issue was probed by SDM Gurgaon (North) Satender Duhan who indicted the school on fee hike. 

I am aware of the order given by the minister but the school management is yet to work out how to repay the developmental charges paid by the parents this year, said Rashi Narula, principal of the school. 

Yadav claimed that the school authorities had no justifications for developmental fee. The school kept collecting money from thousands of students every year and no one objected to it. While in past the fee was Rs 500, school administration suddenly raised it to Rs 1600. People like me, whole have more than one children studying there cant afford to pay this money, he said. 

But when asked about justification of developmental charges, she had something different to say: Every school charges such fee at the time of admission but in our school we charge it every year. Now on we will change the fee structure accordingly. 

With school management still adamant on charging the fee, the tussle looks far from over. Parents can file complaints about any private schools asking for developmental charges and I will take appropriate action against the school, district education officer Jyoti Chaudhary said. 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/gurgaon/Dont-charge-development-fee-private-school-told/articleshow/6957100.cms

CAG heat on 25 Delhi schools for fee hike

Parents protesting against the sudden hike in tuition fee across private schools in Delhi on account of the Sixth Pay Commission have been vindicated.

A tell-all audit report of 25 unaided schools submitted recently by the Comptroller Audit General of India (CAG) corroborates the gnawing suspicion among parents that the fee hike was indeed unjustified.

According to the report - that was submitted to the Chief Minister, Chief Secretary, Principal Secretary of Education and the Lieutenant Governor in the first week of November - several sought- after institutions should not have footed the bill of salary arrears to the parents as they had adequate reserve funds to pay the increased remuneration of teachers.

Thirteen out of the 25 institutions audited by CAG were found guilty of burdening parents and these include prestigious names (see box) such as Delhi Public School, R. K. Puram, Amity International School, Saket, Air Force Bal Bharti School, Lodhi Road, Mount Carmel School, Anand Niketan, St. Xavier's School, Raj Niwas Marg, Sadhu Vaswani School, Presentation Convent Sr. Sec School, St.Mary's School, Mayur Vihar and G. D. Goenka School, Vasant Kunj.

There are a total of 1,211 private schools in Delhi. The 25 schools were randomly selected covering six districts of the Capital and have been audited for the period from April 2006 to March 2009. The audit, which has been conducted in the context of a Recent Public Interest Litigation filed with the Delhi High Court on the issue of fee hike, is a first of many to come.

CAG report finds the hike unjustified

The report states: "All these (13) schools had free reserves, which as per directions, should have been utilised first to pay the salary arrears from January 2006 to August 2008.

However, the school management first collected tuition fee from students to the maximum permissible extent and then utilised their free reserves… to meet balance liability. These schools, thus, unauthorisedly collected ` 13.08 crore and placed avoidable burden on parents." Delhi Public School, RK Puram, for instance, collected salary arrears over Rs 2.5 crore even though it had a reserve fund of more than Rs 15 crore at its disposal as of March 2008.

Summer Fields School in Kailash Colony, on the other hand, had its students pay arrears of up to Rs 95 lakh when it had close to Rs 5 crore in its reserve fund.

"I was there at the time of the audit and the observations made by the CAG are completely correct. I, too, had objected to a fee increase when the school had adequate funds to meet the hike in salaries.

"Parents were being footed the bill to meet the needs of the owners. But education today has become a commercial commodity," said a former principal of popular school in South Delhi, who did not wish to be identified.

The Principals of Delhi Public School, R. K. Puram, St.Xavier's School and Amity International School, Saket, could not be reached despite repeated attempts. D. M Sharma, director, GD Goenka, did not wish to comment on the issue as he was out of town.

The CAG, however, has also pinned the responsibility of such gross violation on the Delhi government. "The (education) department did not fulfill its obligation to get the accounts of unaided school duly audited… due to weak governance by the DOE the schools continued to enhance fees despite having surplus funds," the report states.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/119887/India/cag-heat-on-25-city-schools-for-fee-hike.html

G D Goenka school throws out postman's son

NEW DELHI: Most government employees celebrated the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission. But for Satya Pal, a postman at R K Puram in south Delhi, the joy of a hike in his salary came with a bitter aftertaste. His 14-year-old son, who had been studying for four years at G D Goenka Public School, Vasant Kunj, was thrown out of the school on July 12. The reason: School authorities said since Pal's annual salary had gone beyond Rs 1 lakh, his son was no longer eligible to study for free under the government's EWS scheme. The school demanded that he pay Rs 23,000 per quarter if he wanted his son to continue in the institution.

"I was really happy when my son got admission in class IV in such a big school. But now the school wanted me to pay such high fees if I wanted him to keep studying there. Even though my salary has gone up, I am still a postman and earn just around Rs 15,000 per month," says Pal. The poor postman is now in a fix. "My son is in class VIII. Where do I take him in the middle of the session now?" he asks. According to Pal, his son, Vinit Kumar, was called to the principal's office on July 12 during recess. Says Vinit, "I was made to wait for more than two hours. Then someone asked me to get my bag and sent me home with a school staffer."

The school officials insist they are only following Delhi government rules which allow only students whose parents' annual income is less than Rs 1 lakh to be covered in the EWS category. "We allowed the boy to continue studying for free in the school for two years after the Sixth Pay Commission was introduced. But he cannot be placed in the EWS category any longer as we have to be accountable to the government," says Naresh Kumar, director, public relations, G D Goenka Public School. He adds, "The father could not furnish an appropriate income certificate nor could he pay the fees. The boy's EWS seat could have gone to someone else who is more needy."

Advocate Ashok Agarwal, who runs a civil rights group called Social Jurist and from whom Satya Pal is seeking legal guidance says the school's action is brutal and insensitive. "The child was admitted in the school as per rules for the EWS category. So he should have been allowed to continue. It's brutal to throw out a child from school just because his father is better off now. It's probably time the government thought about bringing some change in the rules, especially when the right to education has to be implemented," he says.

However, the government has clarified it has no plans to enable children like Pal's to continue their studies under EWS. Says state education minister Arvinder Singh Lovely, "If the postman's income is much more than the prescribed limit for EWS category, he will have to pay the school fees. People work and grow financially. That is why we ask for income certificates of parents every year to keep track." He adds, "The EWS policy is only for those parents who really cannot afford their child's education in any school. Besides, the RTE norms are still being worked out and haven't been implemented yet."

Pal's current annual income is Rs 1.89 lakh (around Rs 15,000 a month). In 2006, he had submitted a certificate declaring that he earned Rs 6,955 monthly.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/G-D-Goenka-school-throws-out-postmans-son/articleshow/6189059.cms