BENGALURU: Parents’ organisations held a protest on Sunday, seeking government intervention in fee regulation. Voice of Parents-Karnataka, an association of parents of various private schools (ICSE and CBSE), is demanding that the Education minister ensure that only tuition fee is collected for the academic year 2020-21. They are also urging the government to appoint an Ombudsman to regulate unaided private schools, so parents are not left at the mercy of the managements of these institutions.
A parent told The New Indian Express that the government claimed it was helpless where fee regulation for CBSE and ICSE schools was concerned. However the parents’ forum reminded the state government that it was adequately empowered to regulate fees in CISCE, CBSE, GICSE/JBE, any other Board affiliated schools as per the RTE Act 2009 and Karnataka RTE Rules 2012.
While the government has allowed schools to start classes in small groups from class six onwards, parents have also demanded that online options should continue, and reopening of unaided private schools must be put off till it is safe for children.
“There have been no talks between parents and school administrators for want of a platform, which the government must facilitate,” Shakeel, a parent, told TNIE. The representatives of Karnataka Private School Students’ Parents Association sought to pay just 25 per cent fees in schools which have more than 1,001 students, 50 per cent fees for schools with 501 to 1,000 students, 75 per cent fees for schools with 101 to 500 students, and 100 per cent fees for schools with less than 100 students.
Demanding that action be taken against erring schools, the parents said that the institutions should charge tuition fees commensurate with the actual salary expenditure. They pointed out that an average 25% of teaching and non-teaching staff have been terminated, and the remaining 75% staff are paid only 50% salary or even less as per the number of hours of online classes they have conducted.
That amounts to only a salary expenditure of 37.5% or even less. Thus, if the hidden charges are taken out and with the reduced salary expenditure of schools, tuition fees can come down considerably compared to the academic year 2019-20, they claimed.