UP zooming in on solution

The Uttar Pradesh administration finally seems to have woken up to the issue of fee hikes in private schools of the state. The UP administration has issued delayed guidelines for forming district committees to decide on the amount of fee-hike, reports Peeyush Khandelwal.

The Uttar Pradesh (UP) administration finally seems to have woken up to the issue of fee hikes in private schools of the state. The UP administration has issued delayed guidelines for forming district committees to decide on the amount of fee-hike.

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The district magistrates (DM) of each district will coordinate the committees and address the issue of fee hike, which has turned into a major bone of contention between the agitating parents and public schools.

“Although the district committee would decide about the fee-hike, the schools can appeal to the Commissioner’s office if they are dissatisfied by the decision,” said District Inspector of Schools (DIOS) Ravinder Kumar Singh.

As per the circular, schools affiliated to Indian School Certificate Examination (ICSE), Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Senior Secondary Board (UP), excluding the minority institutions, would be covered, official said.

Parents welcomed the move.

“We now have a regulatory body at the district-level. Even CBSE had no control over the fee-hike issue. With this order, the accounts and amount of fee-hike of various schools would be under check,” said Vineet Bajaj, parent from DLF-school at Sahibabad.

However, schools were apprehensive about the practical difficulties of the order. “It would have been better if the schools’ representatives had been included in the district committees. The point for three years bar after a fee-hike is unreasonable,” said Rakesh Khullar, Chairman DLF Public School Sahibabad, Ghaziabad.