Parents protest fee hike

Hundreds of parents protested the fee hike in front of Ramjas School, Anand Parvat, on Monday morning, reports HT Correspondent.

Hundreds of parents protested the fee hike in front of Ramjas School, Anand Parvat, on Monday morning. Parents alleged the school had raised fees unnecessarily and was demanding more than the amount required to cover the salaries of teachers under the Sixth Pay Commission.

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“The school has raised the development fee from Rs 660 to Rs 2,880. On top of that we have to pay Rs 1,258 extra as development fee from September 2008 to March 2009,” said a parent, on condition of anonymity.

Parents demanded the school use the money lying in the students welfare fund.

“The school has crores of rupees in the fund. Why can’t they use that money? We want an audit of the students welfare fund and also want the school to put all expenses incurred since 1999 on the website,” demanded another parent.

However, principal Rajni Arora said that the school was following the guidelines of the Directorate of Education.

“We are going strictly by the guidelines of the Directorate and have enhanced the development charges in order to cover the arrears,” said Arora.

Fee hike was not the only issue that parents had a problem with. They claimed that the school did not stock NCERT books and changed the school uniform every year.

“The school has commercialised education. They have been stocking more expensive books by private publishers and give out note books that cannot be used by students the following year,” claimed a parent.

Arora dismissed the charges. “We do keep NCERT books but the school has a certain standard to maintain. Even parents want more colourful books for their children,” said Arora. “Moreover, the problem with NCERT books is that we do not get the books on time,” she said.