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| Fee Fixation Committee reprimands Foundation World School for charging ‘exorbitant’ fee | | Takes bold step of restructuring fee for all the classes | | Jehangir Rashid
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Mar 23: The Committee for Fixation & Regulation of Fee of Private Schools (FFRC) in the union territory of Jammu & Kashmir has reprimanded a private school for its claim that rent of the property on which the school is located has jumped to three crores in two years.
Acting on the complaint of Mohammad Suhail Dar that Foundation World School, Mammath/Humhama is charging fee at exorbitant rates Chairperson FFRC Justice (Retired) Muzaffar Hussain Attar in his order wrote that ‘veil’ needs to be lifted in this regard so that the truth comes to the fore.
“The settler of the Trust is father of owner of property who has leased out property to the Trust. For initial years, zero rent has been paid and surprisingly it has jumped to almost 3 crores within 2 years. The veil has to be lifted to ascertain the true picture,” wrote Justice (Retd) Attar in order number 01-FFRC (FF) of 2021 dated 18-03-2021.
The order further reads, “The School in the meanwhile shall get the rent fixed by Government authorities in terms of settles norms and submit report to FFRC within three months. The School shall provide authenticated details about the excluded expenses mentioned Supra.” It adds that that the file will be again considered after six months.
The complainant had submitted that there are only three Cambridge affiliated schools in Jammu & Kashmir with one among them being Foundation World School and the other two being Oasis School, Gogjibagh-Srinagar and British International School, Jammu. He said that there is disparity in the tuition fee between the two with the school charging Rs. 6,350 per month compared to Rs. 3,000 charged by British International School.
In the order the Chairperson of FFRC said that analysis of financial statements show no clarity regarding the expenses on account of branding, estates, MOB and student expenses as no details are provided under these expenditure heads. There is also a huge jump in expenditure on account of rent from zero on 31-03-2017 and Rs. 2, 79, 27,031 in 2019-20.
“The comparative study was also made with established schools within the Srinagar city whose infrastructure, capacity and capabilities are better than the school. After having thoughtful consideration to all these issues and in discharge of onerous duty to ensure there is neither commercialization nor profiteering of education, the Committee after taking all the relevant factors into consideration, found it just and proper to fix the following fee structure for school for academic session 2020-21 and onwards,” reads the order.
The Committee has set Rs. 2,900 as monthly tuition fee for Nursery, LKG and UKG, Rs. 3,000 as monthly tuition fee for classes 1st-5th and Rs. 3,200 as monthly tuition fee for classes 6th-8th. The Committee has set as Rs. 4,000 as annual fee for the already enrolled students at the School. The Committee held that the school is charitable in nature and is registered under section 12 A of Income Tax Act.
The complainant has hailed the Chairperson of FFRC for fixing the fee structure for the different classes at the school and said that the step would go a long way in ensuring justice for the parents whose children are receiving education at the school. |
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