CHENNAI: So what is so special about Sunshine Monetessori Nursery and Primary School here? Well, for one, it is run by former deputy chief minister M K Stalin’s daughter Senthamarai Sabarish. But, more importantly, the institution, functioning from the frontline DMK leader’s old house at Dr Seethapathy Nagar in upscale Velachery, is the most expensive nursery school in town— at Rs 24,000 a year.
The sum may sound not too big, but then the school was till recently charging only Rs 11,000 a year for LKG and UKG students. The sudden raise happened after the private school fee determination committee, headed by Justice Raviraja Pandian, fixed an annual maximum fee of Rs 24,000 for LKG and UKG—and Sunshine school managed to get into the top-grade category even as the institution boasts of only those two classes. “The same committee has fixed a fee of Rs 4,050 for higher secondary classes in other private schools,” says K R Nandha Kumar, the general secretary of Tamil Nadu Nursery, Primary, Matriculation and Higher Secondary Schools’ Association.
He says his organisation welcomes the state government’s move to withdraw the Uniform System of Education, but is unhappy that the fee determination committee is acting with partiality—and he has sought its dissolution. The uniform system, Kumar argues, had downgraded the standard of education.
To prove his charge, he points out the favour shown to the school run by Stalin’s daughter. So, how can one compare the fee structures of two different standards? Kumar has an answer: 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,” claims Kumar. He suggests the panel’s dissolution.