Private schools: Vijender Gupta urges special session

Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta on Friday urged chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to convene a special session of the Delhi Assembly to legislate strong laws to curb commercialisation of education, exploitation of parents and arbitrary increase in fees effected by public schools.

Mr Gupta claimed that despite Mr Kejriwal government’s propaganda, private schools in the city continued to unscrupulously exploit parents. “The government has so far only issued misleading advertisements and statements, but has actually miserably failed to come out with any effective legislation against the exploitation by private schools. The government in its advertisements refers to the order of the high court, dated January 19, which says that the private schools cannot increase fees without prior approval of the government. However, the Delhi government has conveniently hidden the fact that this order is applicable only to 200 schools which were provided land at concessional rates by the DDA,” said Mr Gupta.

According to the BJP MLA, there are about 2,000 private schools in Delhi, out of which only 200 are covered by the above order. “It is strange that the government has made no legislation so far to exercise control over these schools. Therefore, the parents are under compulsion to be looted by these private schools. The last date for depositing fees in the private schools is April 30. Deputy chief minister and education minister Manish Sisodia is asking parents not to deposit the increased fees. The parents fail to understand what to do in such a situation. Will Mr Sisodia be able to safeguard interests of the parents who do not deposit increased fees by following his diktat ” asked Mr Gupta.

The Leader of Opposition pointed out that the Delhi Assembly had passed a bill in November 2015 under the title Delhi Schools (Verification of Accounts and Return of Excess Fees) Bill, 2015.