HYDERABAD: Now, sanitation is also something that students of private schools have to pay for once classes resume on February 1.School managements have expressed inability to foot the bill for providing sanitisers and keeping their premises spick and span during the Covid-19 pandemic. They have begun sending messages to parents asking them to pay for sanitation, besides a host of other “services” which were not delivered as schools remained shut, over and above the tuition fee.
At a recent meeting called by Telangana Education Minister P Sabitha Indra Reddy, the representatives of private schools sought permission from the State government to collect money from students for providing sanitsers and other agents that are used to keep the premises clean. They reportedly informed the Minister that instructions to use sanitisers liberally in schools is easier said than done as they would have to invest heavily on it and are not in a position to bear the additional burden.
Though the government had not permitted them to hike the fee, they are already passing the burden on to students. According to a senior official of the Education Department, no permission had been given to schools to hike the fee. The managements said as schools remained shut for the last 10 months, a thick layer of dust had settled and, in some cases, there is a thin coat of grime on the furniture.
To clean the premises and then follow the standard operating protocol would cost big bucks. “Many students have not paid their fees. Providing hand sanitisers and maintaining social distancing is not easy for small schools in Hyderabad,” the managements have said. It is also learned from the Hyderabad Schools Parents’ Association (HSPA) that a few parents had received SMS messages for fee alerts with an additional charge for sanitation.
“We knew this would happen. Schools will charge us an additional fee in some way or the other. Besides, the GO 46 is of no use as schools are now collecting the entire fee as tuition fee and are not giving parents a breakup of it,” Venkat Sainath, HSPA joint secretary, said.
“We urged the Minister to give clarity on GO 46 which only allows the collection of tuition fees. We also suggested to her that instead of this, the government can clearly ask school managements to reduce the fee by 50 per cent until the pandemic subsides,” the HSPA joint secretary said.
The government, however, has not given a green signal for collecting additional fee towards sanitation. “We have not permitted them to charge extra,” Special Chief Secretary to the Government, Education, Chitra Ramachandran, told Express.
Students from many private colleges said they too are being forced to pay for services such as libraries, computer labs, studios, etc even though they had not used these. “Why should I be made to pay for the services which I have not been using? My father is getting paid only half his salary, yet I had to pay the full fee,” Nahida Ahmed, a private college student.