THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the Covid threat continuing to loom large, reopening of schools is highly unlikely in the immediate future. However, unaided schools and private educational institutions have not compromised on the fee structure and many of them continue to charge huge fees forcing the parents to look for other options.
Meena (name changed), the parent of a third-grade student, recently shifted her son to a government school. “We cannot afford the fees being charged by private school. The online class is not helping my son and the private school is charging the same fee structure for the online class, which is unfair. Due to the pandemic, my husband and I are not getting paid properly.
Hence, we decided on government schools,” says Meena. “Not every parent can afford the huge fees. The schools are also not including parents who have difficulty in paying fees in official WhatsApp groups,” Meena adds. She says a section of parents is willing to pay the fees, which encourages the school management.
Authorities of Cotton Hill Girls Higher Secondary School says more than 70 per cent of applications for the new academic year were from students belonging to unaided schools. “We were able to conduct admissions only for three days because of the pandemic and were overwhelmed with enquiries from parents. We will restart the admissions after the lockdown,” Geetha G, headmistress of the school says.
FLEXIBLE FACILITY
So far, Cotton Hill School has received around 198 applications and a majority are from unaided schools. Staff secretary Anitha Nair C R says one of the reasons for the migration is the state-of-the-art facilities being offered by government schools. “People now notice how efficient government schools are. Last year, government schools offered the best online classes for the students. Also, we were able to popularise every event and session via social media, which gave us more popularity.
The enquiries we are getting are overwhelming.” According to her, many parents are opting for government schools as online classes are more flexible. “We are offering classes flexibly unlike unaided schools. Most of the students are unable to attend classes as per schedule because they may not have the facility at home. They depend on their parent’s mobile phones and attend classes when the parent is home. Our teachers are available and are paying individual attention to every student,” Anitha adds.