BENGALURU: In response to violations by schools who are not adhering to the order of the Karnataka government to reduce fees by 30 percent this academic year owing to financial distress caused the pandemic and in the backdrop of private school managements threatening a strike against this order, several parents associations have stated that if the government considers a rollback of even one percent, they will be out on the streets again.
In a press meet on Friday, Voice of Parents - Karnataka Association in alliance with Karnataka Private Schools' Parents Associations Coordination Committee put out a list of demands including taking necessary steps to ensure students in school are not affected by this dispute until it is resolved.
"Though this order did not meet all our demands, yet parents have accepted it. The ICSE and CBSE school managements associations want the parents to approach them on a case to case basis and submit our termination letter, bank pass book, pay slip, etc to prove we merit a concession. Why must we bare all? They are no authority to peep into our finances and instead, they must be subject to audit, if they want more than 70 percent of the fees to be paid," said Mohammed Shakeel, member of Voice of Parents- Karnataka Association.
They rued that 42 cells were to be established in Block Education Offices by the government for parents to raise fee complaints, but even after a week of the announcement, the counter has not been set up.
They listed out fee violations by school managements including schools claiming not to have received the fee reduction order, some taking stay orders from the court and demanding the full fee, deactivating online classes, threatening to prevent the child from writing the exam, holding back their results, preventing promotion, issuing TC to the child etc.
A press release by the parents associations stated that Associated Management of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka want a customized reduction instead of a blanket order, after denying the same option to parents for the past 10 months.
"Let the school managements comply with the requirement to submit the statement of accounts of fee that shall be subject to audit by the department before publishing the nature of fee," the parents stated.