Parents’ Association of Pune to press ahead with protest against school fee hikes

PUNE The Parents’ Association of Pune has said that they will continue their fight against fee hikes by private schools

PUNE The Parents’ Association of Pune has said that they will continue their fight against fee hikes by private schools.

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Jayshree Deshpande, president of the Parents Association of Pune, said that the question of fee hikes should be resolved as early as possible.

“Parents are financially struggling over the last one year due to the pandemic. However, schools are hiking fees even during the pandemic when offline classes are not going on,” said Deshpande.

The Parents Association has been in talks with the education department.

“We will be meeting education commissioner, Vishal Solanki to discuss various issues at hand,”Deshpande added.

Amar Ekad, president of a student organisation, said that the basic demand of 50 per cent fee reduction should be implemented soon.

“We have submitted our list of demands to the education department. And until the department gives us a written intimation regarding the same, we will not stop the protest,” said Ekad.

He also added that one of their demands is to make the audit of each school mandatory.

“There are 90 per cent schools in the state who have not submitted, or even carried out their audits. Such schools should be held accountable for doing the audit. Education department does not carry out any investigation on such schools. Schools and colleges must undergo an audit to understand how they are hiking fees each year,” said Ekad.

He added that students now are at home and schools are online due to the pandemic.

“In such a situation, there should be a separate school fee structure that the schools should charge for,” said Ekad.