Shimla, Sept. 13
The Student Parents’ Forum has decided to intensify the agitation for an arbitrary robbery of private schools, against issues like heavy fees, ban on fee hike, tuition fees should not exceed fifty percent of the total fees and only on the collection of tuition fees. The forum has demanded from the state government that a law should be passed in this Vidhan Sabha session to conduct fees, syllabus, and content in private schools.
The conveyor of the forum Vijendra Mehra, co-conveyor Bindu Joshi, members Vivek Kashyap and Falma Chauhan have expressed surprise that the state government is not taking any action against private schools despite their random and heavy loot. The education department had submitted a proposal to the state government to stop the arbitrary robbery and robbery of private schools about a year ago, but the state government is deliberately not presenting this proposal in the assembly. He has said that if the state government is really serious about six lakh students and nine lakh parents of private schools, then this resolution should be introduced in this assembly session and a law should be passed for operating private schools. There is no provision for the operating private schools in the 1997 law and the year 2003 rules. Therefore, it is very important that soon a new law is introduced. He has demanded a regulatory commission on the lines of higher education for the operation of private schools. He has demanded the formation of a State Advisory Council to stop the loot of private schools.
He has further demanded to implement only the order of collection of tuition fees from the state government during the Corona period and a ban on all types of charges. He wants that all schools issue their fee booklets having the details of item-wise fees to be made public. Forum have also demanded a full waiver of the fees for Play Way schools as children in Play Way schools did not attend school for a single day due to Corona. He has warned the State Government, Director of Higher Education and Elementary Education that the decision to take tuition fees only on the lines of 2019, if not implemented in a literal manner, tuition fees were not collected on a monthly basis instead of quarterly, all kinds of Charges have not been waived and incorporated, tuition fees have not been reshaped and the fees of playschools have not been completely waived if the agitation will intensify.
Vijendra Mehra has said that private school management is unwilling to incorporate the overcharged fees in the next installments and neither refunding this increased fee. He has said that according to the decision of the cabinet, private schools can charge tuition fees only on the lines of 2019, but these schools are charging tuition fees with the increase in fees for the year 2020 instead of 2019. These schools last year in various items such as tuition fees, annual charges, admission fees, computer fees, smart classroom charges, sports charges, care funds, miscellaneous funds, building funds, development funds, and all other types of funds and fees. The fees taken this year have been included only in tuition fees and the tuition fees have been increased by four to five times as compared to the previous year and the parents have to bear the additional burden of ten to fifteen thousand rupees in the quarter of the corona period itself. He said that many private schools, taking advantage of the Corona period, removed 90% and 100% of the fees in the booklet in the name of tuition fees. Therefore, their tuition fees should be linearized and fees should be collected from the parents on the same basis. Tuition fees in any form should not be charged more than fifty percent of the total fees. For this, the entire mechanism should be prepared.
