Parents write to CM over school fee

Over 1000 parents of students in the city’s schools wrote to the chief minister with a charger of 10 demands regarding fee, which, they say, were unreasonable during

Over 1000 parents of students in the city’s schools wrote to the chief minister with a charger of 10 demands regarding fee, which, they say, were unreasonable during the lockdown imposed to contain Covid-19.

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The letter, also addressed to Gurugram deputy commissioner Amit Khatri sought a waiver of “unreasonable fee” being charged by schools under various budget heads. Parents want the government to ensure that only essential component of the tuition fee is charged and parents are not pressured to pay a fee hike and additional charges.

“Even in the current situation, private schools have not hesitated to increase the fee. Fee revision is between 7-10%. Many parents have written to the schools but schools have been reluctant to respond,” stated the mail.

The demands include no hike in fee in the current financial year, waiver of bus fee, extra activity fees, AC fees, light fees, and fee for services that are not being used with schools remaining closed during the lockdown. Further, parents have requested that schools may be allowed to charge only essential components of the monthly tuition fee. If schools have already collected an additional fee from parents, they must adjust the same in the tuition fee in the coming session, they demanded.

Himanshu Sharma, a parent, said that parents were not insisting that schools do not charge at all, but that they should justify the fee being charged and offer concession in light of the lockdown. “Schools can collect tuition fee to pay for the salaries of teachers, but other fee components towards electricity or building funds shouldn’t be charged right now since students are not utilising these services and studying from home. Many parents are going through financial distress and are not in a situation to pay the increased fee or additional charges,” said Sharma.

Last week, the district administration had said that private schools in the district could neither force parents to pay school fee nor hike fees during the lockdown. Prior to that, the state education department had said that private schools in the state could collect a monthly fee from parents, only if their financial condition allowed them. The department had also said that parents facing financial distress due to the lockdown could not be forced to pay the monthly fee and could seek relaxation from schools.