Mumbai school bars students from writing exams citing pending fees

A spokesperson of the school said they had to take the step as some parents did not pay the fees despite the school making several methods available for paying the same.

Parents of some students studying at Somaiya School in Vidyavihar alleged their children were not allowed to write exams scheduled on Monday citing pending fee payments.

Somaiya School in Vidyavihar (East), Mumbai. (HT FILE)

Virendra Singh, parent of a Class 5 student, said when his daughter tried to open the link for the Mathematics paper scheduled at 8am, she could not access it. “Even the zoom link meant for proctoring wasn’t working. First, we thought that it must be a technical glitch from our end. But soon, more parents began writing on the parents’ group. When we called the teachers, we were told that the children were not being allowed due to pending fee payments. Teachers asked us to speak to the school but no one from the school was ready to speak to us,” said Singh.

Singh said that he had paid one instalment of the fees but the school had asked him to clear all the remaining due, to the tune of over ₹1 lakh. “There has been some financial pressure and we promised the school that we will pay one more instalment now and others soon. But they asked for the whole amount at once,” he added.

A spokesperson from the school said, “The management had made available various options for payment of fees including that of paying in four quarterly instalments, monthly instalments, and deferred payment on a case to case basis, should conditions not permit a parent to pay at the stipulated time. Despite all our efforts to ease the burden on parents, some have not even paid first/second instalments even though we are now approaching the end of the current academic year. Thus with a heavy heart, we have had to restrict the defaulting students from appearing for internal tests which can be retaken at any point in time. None of the defaulting students scheduled to appear in the CBSE board exam this year have been barred from appearing in the ongoing pre-board exams.”

Another parent from the school said the school had been making calls to make payments over the past few days. “We have been receiving calls and emails and some of us ended up paying in pressure. But some others who are unable to pay are facing a tough time,” said a parent.