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| Govt cracks whip; parents, schools not convinced | | FEE BLUES | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
Jammu, May 11: The hue and cry over the fee structure of private schools –both affiliated to the J&K Board and the CBSE –refuses to settle down but when all three parties locked in the issue were today face to face pleas appeared genuine from all sides.
For past sometime the parents of the children have been coming loggerheads with management of private schools inviting attention of the department of school education. While parents allege that the schools are charging hefty sums, the school managements justify this with a variety of reasons, including the pay structures of the teachers suggested by the government. The directorate of school education has been trying to pay the role of a regulator but neither parents nor the school managements are quite convinced.
In an interaction between school management and associations of parents with Director School education, the debate could not bring out anything to carry forward. Warning management of the private schools against commercialization of education, the Director School Education Zahida Khan has made it clear that CBSE rules clearly state that the schools shall be run on “ No Profit No loss” basis without indulging in any profiteering, besides, dispensing with the charges on account of building fund.
Addressing meeting of Principals/ representatives of private schools and the parents of the children studying in these schools, the Director, while referring to the complaints regarding the charging of annual fee by certain schools, directed the management to give detailed breakup of annual fee. She expressed her grave concern over the charging of hefty admission fees, amalgamated fee and computer fee from 1st to 12th class by some schools despite different levels of teaching requirement and syllabi.
She also referred to complaints received from certain parents and their associations against some of the private schools charging hefty fee despite their assurance of full cooperation. The principals of CBSE pattern schools contended that the fee has been hiked as the staff is to be paid the salaries as per recommendations of 6th pay commission.
The Director also referred to the Supreme Court ruling in the case entitled Model school V/S Union of India where under management of recognized unaided schools have been permitted to hike fee not exceeding 15% of the total annual tuition fee.
With regard to the complaint of prescribing diet charts which include fast foods, the principals of the concerned schools informed that the restriction has been with- drawn by their management which was issued by one of the teaching staff. The management agreed to adhere to restricting numbers of students to 35, 40 and 50 at Primary, Middle and Higher Secondary level in each classroom.
The president of the private schools affiliated to Jammu and Kashmir Board of School Education informed the meeting that are strictly following the Government instructions and the record has been shown to the visiting teams of the Education Department. A representative of private schools of rural area informed that their fee was as low as Rs 50 and question of profiteering does not rise.
Lauding the positive attitude of some of the private schools, the Director has explicitly made it clear to all the managements to strictly adhere to the government instructions and prominently display their fee structure and avoid commercialization of education and work in cooperation with parents in the interests of students in particular and the society in general.
She impressed upon the management bodies of the private schools to reconsider their fee structure after proper consultation with the parents. She, however, made it clear that any revision in fee structure should not be done during the mid season and revised fee, if any, should be reasonable and justified and commensurate with the infrastructure facilities provided by the institution.
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