Shimla, March 26-Forum seeks Fee Regulatory Commission for Pvt. Schools
The. State Student Guardian Forum have urged the State government to enact a law and a regulatory commission in the current ongoing assembly session to curb the arbitrary loot and monopoly of Private schools in fee hike, and prices of books and uniforms.
Convenor of Forum Vijendra Mehra and co-convenor Vivek Kashyap have demanded that the government should bring a law to form a regulatory commission to stop this arbitrary loot of private schools.
The forum representatives expressed anger over the increase in the fees of private schools by about 20 percent, this year. They also rued a 30 percent increase in prices of school uniforms and books noted in the year 2023.
They termed it as a failure of the education department that this year, private schools of Shimla town increased fees by almost 20 percent (50 thousand to 60 thousand rupees) directly. They said that every year 20 to 30 percent more fees are being collected from the students while in lue, they get nothing in the name of basic facilities. They also alleged that about 3 thousand rupees are being collected under head miscellaneous charges, for which no account is maintained.
Further adding that, by selling uniforms and books from shortlisted shops, private schools managements are making commissions from middlemen, depriving the parents of the discount they could have got on books and uniforms. The forum also informed that all such actions are in violation of NCERT, SCERT, CBSE and MHRD guidelines.
They alleged that private schools managements are openly looting parents, but the education department and the State government are mute spectators. They warned the State government that if, appropriate action was not taken, the Forum would launch a even more aggressive front against state, education department and private schools. SGF appealed the Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu to take initiative to implement the law to regulate private schools so that seven lakh students and ten lakh parents of the state could get justice.
He has said that due to the failure and connivance of various state governments, private schools have been continuously working with absolute monopoly as even during the Corona period, apart from tuition fees, these private schools management were busy collecting annual charges, computer fees, smart class room, miscellaneous sports, maintenance, infrastructure, building fund, transport and all other types of funds.
They alleged that private schools are openly violating the guidelines of the Ministry of Human Resource Development of the year 2014 and the Department of Education dated December 5, 2019, on the matter of fee collection, and are ignoring the role of the parents’ general meeting to fix the fee and other charges. According to the guidelines of the Education Department, PTAs have not been constitued in 99 percent schools. Besides these schools prefer to form dummy PTA’s.
While concluding the forum demanded that the state government to immediately enact a law and constitute a regulatory commission to regulate fees, syllabus and admission process in private schools.
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