168 parents lodge complaint with fee regulatory body against Chandigarh school

Director-principal of Saupin’s School said this is a concerted effort by a certain group of parents across the city who have decided to not pay school fees under any circumstance

As many as 168 parents of students from Saupin’s School, Sector 32, lodged a complaint with the fee regulatory body on Tuesday following which some parents met members of the body.

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In the written complaint to the education department, parents alleged that there was “non-compliance with the mandatory uploading of balance sheets detailing their income and expenditure accounts, charging excessive fee; indulging in profiteering and commercialisation of education”.

The complaint also states, “The school has already made a norm of charging a consolidated quarterly fee without disclosing the several heads for which it is being charged thus keeping parents in the dark about how the fee payments are being utilised.”

According to the order of the UT administration released on June 3, schools can only charge tuition fee without any fee hike. However, parents alleged that Saupin’s School has merged all other charges including maintenance fee, computer fee and annual fee into the tuition fee.

ABS Siddhu, director-principal of Saupin’s School said, “There is a concerted effort by a certain group of parents across the city who have decided to not pay school fees under any circumstances. While we sympathise entirely with parents who have been hit financially amid the Covid-19 lockdown, we refuse to be intimidated by these kinds of motivated complaints.”

Director of school education, Rubinderjit Singh Brar said, “I am yet to go through the complaint and will examine the situation after that.”