BENGALURU: Parents of children in private schools will have to shell out more money this academic year to send their kids to school. Several schools across the state have reportedly hiked the transportation fee by as much as 30 per cent for 2019-20.
This means that from June onwards, parents will have to pay more to make use of the transport provided by the schools. This unsurprisingly has them up in arms against school management and they are questioning the hike, while according to them, there has been no improvement in the facilities provided.
“We have no issue with paying 30 per cent more, but let them tell us what the additional facilities are to justify the hike,” a parent, who sends his child to a CBSE affiliated school in the city said.
The issue has also led to heated discussions on social media where parents are forming groups in order to approach the schools and demand a rollback. Terming the hike unscientific, some groups have met school authorities and asked that the move be scrapped.
“I wonder what the need for the hike was. The school must provide clarity on this. If they have procured new buses which comply with safety measures and other features recommended by the Government, then we will pay the additional amount as safety is a priority,” said another parent.
The New Indian Express, through a few parents, found out that schools have charged anywhere between Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 60,000 for transport facilities for the 2018-19 academic year. The fee also depends on the distance to school from the child’s home. “When I asked the school, they said there was no improvement in facilities, just a hike in the fee. No additional vehicles are also deployed but they want us to pay more or drop the kids ourselves,” a parent said.
Schools however are justifying the hike saying that there is no option as transportation costs have increased. “It costs a minimum of Rs 1,500 per child to transport them to and fro when they stay within a 5 kilometer radius of the school. We have also had to hike the salaries of the driver and the helper by 15%,” said D Shashi Kumar, General Secretary of the Associated Management of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka.
School representatives also ruled out possible intervention by the government and said that the authorities had no say in the transportation fee charged. The only cap the government had placed was on tuition fee and this does not include fees paid for transport or extracurricular activities, they said.