Don’t tell us to move court, punish schools hiking fees: Parents

Mumbai: Hundreds of harrowed parents across the state are fed up of the lackadaisical attitude of the state government over the arbitrary fee hikes imposed by several schools. After receiving complaints from parents about schools increasing fees arbitrarily, state education minister Vinod Tawde, said that the government has decided to bring an ordinance to strengthen the Fee Regulation Act so that parents can go to court. However, irate parents have questioned the government’s wisdom of asking them to approach the court instead of taking immediate action against errant schools. “Why are we compelling parents go to the court when a law exists to control the hike? Why has the government not registered a single FIR against the schools for increasing fees indiscriminately? Instead of bringing in new amendments, let the existing law be implemented properly,” said Jayant Jain, president of Forum for Fairness in Education. Mr Jain also demanded that the government should conduct an audit of all schools that are charging high fees. The Supreme Court has given clear guidelines against schools profiting from fee hikes, he added.

Mr Tawde, who has been conducting hearings over the past few days regarding the fee hike, has decided to bring an ordinance. “The ordinance will allow parents to go to court directly against fee hikes. Schools will have to declare their fees for Class 1 to 5 and from Class 6 to 10 in the beginning only to restrict them from increasing the fee later. The schools will have to justify their fee hike to the parents,” Mr Tawde said. As per the provisions in the existing law, only the Parent Regulatory Fee Committee can approach the court and not individual parents.

The minister also said that he has been studying the Gujarat fee-hike pattern, which can be implemented in the state. “There are fee slabs in the Gujarat pattern such as Rs 15,000, Rs 25,000 and Rs 27,000. However, if the fees are increased beyond the slabs, the schools have to justify the hike,” he said. The education department is ready with the ordinance draft and it will be introduced next week after the special session of the legislature on the Goods and Services Tax. However, education organisations said the government has not even registered a single case against schools so far under the existing Act.

Dr Vivek Korde from Shikshan Bajarikaran Virodhi Manch, an organisation against commercialisation of education said that the entire act is very weak since beginning. “There is no point in crying foul now. We have been opposing it since the beginning. We must define what is reasonable fee for the schools. If it is Rs 60,000 we call it unaffordable and if it is Rs 40,000 then should we call it affordable? The act has never served its purpose. Our demand is to implement the Right to Education Act to private schools. Under that act education is free for children between 6 and 14 years of age. But there is no implementation for the act,” Korde said.