CHENNAI: Sunshine Monetessori Nursery and Primary School, run by former deputy CM M K Stalin’s daughter Senthamarai from his old house at Dr Seethapathy Nagar in Velachery, is the most expensive school in Chennai.
The private school fee determination committee, headed by Justice Raviraja Pandian, has fixed a maximum fee of Rs 24,000 for LKG and UKG in the school, which now boasts of only those two classes.
“The same committee has fixed a fee of Rs 4,050 for higher secondary classes in many other bigger private schools,” K R Nandha Kumar, the general secretary of Tamil Nadu Nursery, Primary, Matriculation and Higher Secondary Schools’ Association, said at a press conference in Chennai on Saturday.
Welcoming the Tamil Nadu government’s move to withdraw the Uniform System of Education, the association charged the fee determination committee with partiality and sought its dissolution.
The uniform system had downgraded the standard of education instead of improving it, Kumar argued.
To prove his charge, he pointed out the favour shown to the school run by Stalin’s daughter.
Asked how he could compare the fee structures of two different standards, Kumar said the managements could run the kindergartens in AC classrooms, besides offering facilities like a swimming pool, but separate teachers had to be appointed for each subject at the higher secondary level and laboratories for basic sciences had to be created. “If we calculate the expenditure for the higher secondary level, the fee is low,” Kumar claimed.
He suggested dissolving the panel and bringing in a slab system like in engineering colleges, in the range of `10,000-`25,000 for LKG to Class 12.