Fee panel head had conflict of interest: Parents

The government should never have appointed Kumud Bansal, the chairperson of the committee, it set up to suggest draft guidelines for regulating fee hikes in private schools because she is associated with several private schools, the three parents on the committee claimed on Wednesday, reports Serena Menon.

The government should never have appointed Kumud Bansal, the chairperson of the committee, it set up to suggest draft guidelines for regulating fee hikes in private schools because she is associated with several private schools, the three parents on the committee claimed on Wednesday.

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Bansal is the chairperson of the managing committee at Pawar Public School in Bhandup and is a member of the board of Vishwajyoti Public School in Navi Mumbai, both of which are private unaided schools.

“I am not a salaried employee at any of the places mentioned and the government is well aware of my associations with these institutions,” Bansal said.

“It is clear that the committee was constituted wrongly and heavily loaded in favour of the management,” said Jayant Jain, president of the Forum for Fairness in Education. “Another such committee with a balanced composition and view should be formed,” he added.

After a series of conflicts between parents and schools over fee hikes, the state government set up the 21-member committee in June, consisting of only three parents and 18 management representatives.

The committee submitted its the final report to the government last month.

The three parents criticised the report even before its submission, claiming that it favoured the management and didn’t include any of their suggestions and were not shown the final report.

The report recommended that unaided schools be allowed to hike their fees to earn a “reasonable surplus” of 15 per cent over their total expenses (staff salaries, library resources, training and workshops).