1,200 private English medium schools shut down in past 2 yrs

PUNE In a shocking revelation made by the Independent English Schools Association (IESA), more than 1,200 private English medium schools have closed down in the last two years due to financial hardship, not getting help from the state government, and school fees-related issues with parents

PUNE In a shocking revelation made by the Independent English Schools Association (IESA), more than 1,200 private English medium schools have closed down in the last two years due to financial hardship, not getting help from the state government, and school fees-related issues with parents. While some of the school owners have sold out their school premises, others have taken heavy loans from the private market and are now struggling to run their schools.

(From left)Shridhar Iyer , Jagruti Dharmadhikari, Rajiv Mendiratta and Om Sharma at a Press conference at LRC Gymkhana on Tue. (Rahul Raut/HT PHOTO)

“In the last two years, all the private English medium schools have suffered a lot; we have always supported parents for payment of school fees and now, when we need financial support and ask for school fees, we are being targeted unnecessarily. In these last two years, over 1,200 schools have closed down as they cannot afford to run the school administration while some of them have sold out the school premises to pay the pending rent and heavy loan,” said Jagruti Dharmadhikari, ex-president of the association. She was addressing a press conference held in Pune on Tuesday.

There have been some incidents in the recent past in Pune where parents were manhandled by the schools’ security staff. About these instances, Dharmadhikari said, “We would never support such incidents where parents are being manhandled by bouncers or any of the school security staff. And we will be giving strict instructions to all our association members to avoid such incidents. But it is necessary to also understand our problems; it has been seen that there is a parent mafia whose sole intention is to have free education in these private schools. Previously, the so called parent association was voicing the fee amendment act or fee regulation act and the same has been amended several times without taking the opinion of private unaided schools and self-finance schools but parents are still not satisfied as their sole aim is to take free education in these schools thereby creating multiple issues, most importantly non-payment of fees.”

Shridhar Iyer, state coordinator of the association, said, “Apart from the school fees payment issue, there are various other issues which we all are currently facing. From 2012, the pending dues of RTE admissions to all private English medium schools is around Rs900 crore and there are several schools that have not yet got a single penny from the state government. While taking any decision, we are not taken into consideration and the new rules are forced upon us so our demand is to have a separate ministry and dedicated minister for private English medium schools.”