Parents in a spot as Chandigarh schools hike fee

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 15

After gap of a year, city schools have again started increasing the fee for the upcoming academic session. The Education Department is silent on whether the schools can increase the fee this year, leaving the parents in a lurch.

Dinesh Kumar, who has a daughter studying in a Sector 7-based school, said: “Is it justified for schools to charge the full fee, including the medical and multimedia fee, when a few classes are going online and we are getting half the salaries till now due to the pandemic?”

Rekha, a resident of Sector 47, said: “Till last year, we were paying only Rs2,200 as the tuition fee for our two children. Now, the school has merged all charges under the school fee head and we are forced to pay Rs4,300 from this session.”

Just recently, around 40 parents had gathered outside KBDAV Senior Secondary School in Sector 7 to protest the fee payment for the 2021-2022 academic session.

HS Mamik, president of the Indian Schools’ Association, UT, said: “If students cannot pay the fee, they can shift to government schools. It has been mentioned nowhere that private schools cannot hike the fee annually. As a matter of fact, no hike is beyond eight per cent.”

Last year on July 3, the UT Administration ordered that no private school would increase the school fee for 2020-21 without approval from the Administration.

While charging the tuition fee, the schools were directed not to include any “hidden or additional charges”. Besides, all private schools were directed by the UT Administration to display the details of the fee structure (specifically tuition fee), as per the provisions of section 5(c) of Fee Regulation Act, 2016, on their website.

“While the Covid situation is worse than the last year, the middle class is already financially burdened. The fee has been hiked significantly and some schools are even asking parents to buy uniforms for attending online classes as the old uniforms have become short for most children. The Administration must immediately intervene and direct the schools to charge only 50 per cent fee, without any hike this year,” said Nitin Goyal, Chandigarh Parents’ Association.

The UT Education Department apparently failed in ensuring that the private schools display a bifurcated fee structure on their websites.

Rubinderjit Singh Brar, Director School Education, said: “We have issued orders for 2020-21 and it was challenged in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. As of now, no specific orders have been issued for 2021-22 and the Fee Regulation Act is applicable. We are assessing the situation and will seek legal opinion.”

While parents are being forced to pay the hiked fee, the department has failed to check whether the hike is within the ambit of 8 per cent.

As per the Punjab Regulation of Fee of Unaided Educational Institutions Act, 2016, the increase in fee should not exceed eight per cent of the fee of the previous year charged by an unaided educational institution.