MADURAI: The government is yet to take a call on fees to be collected from the students, but many schools, sources said, are forcing parents to pay the fees for the academic year 2021-22. Even worse, a few schools are allegedly not allowing students who failed to pay the fees to attend online classes.
Speaking to TNIE, Nirmala, the mother of two students, studying in a CBSE school, said that nearly 700 students of the school have not paid the fees and that when she, along with the others went to the school to meet the principal, she refused to meet them.
“My elder child is studying in Class XII and the class teacher asked her to pay the entire fees of Rs 87,000 on single payment in the month of March. Of this, Rs 18,000 should be paid to school’s bank account and the remaining amount should be paid as cash to the cashier of the school. No proper bill would be given.
Also, I have asked the break-up of fees payment. But, they refused to disclose anything. Since I was unable to pay the fees, they removed my elder child from the group. My younger child was removed from the WhatsApp group in the month of November itself as the fees for the last academic year was pending,” she said. This is not an isolated case.
An educational officer said that previous AIADMK government had given instructions to the schools not to collect fees.
“Then, the schools moved to court, and the court has given the direction to collect 65 per cent of fees for two terms. However, only a few schools obliged to the rule. New government till now has not given any instructions on fees. The government should also create a toll free number or website so that the parents could lodge complaints,” he said.
Meanwhile, State Platform for Common School System’s Tamil Nadu General Secretary PB Prince Gajendra Babu said that the government should order all the schools to post their fees structure on their school website.