The Delhi government on Thursday set up a complaint centre to address parents’ grievances against private schools in the city, especially over the fees structure.
The Kejriwal government has already announced that the city’s private schools, housed on its land, cannot increase their fees without seeking prior approval from the state government.
“The government has set up the Private School Complaint Centre, where the parents can complain against arbitrary decisions made by the private schools. The centre has been set up at office of New Delhi district (education) in Jhandewalan,” a senior government official said. Apart from this, the city’s education department, headed by deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, has also issued an email id — doe.pvt@gmail.com — using which the parents can also register their complaints pertaining to fees hike and other issues in the private schools.
“The process of setting up this complaint centre was necessitated by the recent disturbing developments, particularly the takeover notice to two schools and a direction to the third private school to roll back its unjustified fees hike. According to the high court of Delhi, schools which have been constructed on land provided by the government, cannot hike their fees without seeking approval from the government,” the official added. Some schools have sought the approval of the Delhi government for fees hike, but the AAP government has not given its approval so far. “Therefore, if any school has hiked the fees, it is liable for government action. In such a scenario, the complaint centre has been set up to allow the parents to file complaints against the erring schools without any apprehension of their children being harassed by the private school managements and to further facilitate easy access, the email ID has also been made public,” he added. On Wednesday, a delegation of parents met chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Mr Sisodia and complained about a school and increase in its fees. “The government is serious about preventing arbitrariness by private schools,” Mr Sisodia had said.
Earlier this week, the Kejriwal government had issued show-cause notices to two branches of Maxfort School.
