NEW DELHI: At least four lakh children from private backgrounds, who command one-third of the total enrollment (over 12 lakh) in over 1,000-odd Central Schools or Kendriya Vidyalayas (KV), will have to pay double the fees (Rs 1,000) per month effective April 1. Children of defence personnel and government employees are being exempted from such hikes. KVs were set up by the Central Government across the country to offer primary and secondary school education to the children of government employees, defence and paramilitary force personnel besides public sector undertakings (PSUs).
Government sources said the financial committee of the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS), an administrative body which runs these schools, has already given a go-ahead for a fee hike. A senior HRD ministry official confirmed that the matter is being listed for approval before the KVS’s Board of Governors, which is expected to sit sometime soon.
An official explained that this is being done to ensure that these schools be able to raise their own resources and the additional revenue collected through this can be utilised by them for small infrastructural and other developmental works required in their respective schools.
By raising the fee 100 per cent, these schools would get an additional fund of around Rs 240 crore per annum, said an official. This is despite that the Centre allocated an annual of grant Rs 875 crore for these 1,000-odd schools for planned expenditure for finnacial year 2015-16, while it was Rs 742 crore for 2014-15 and Rs 350 crore for 2013-14 financial year. There is a huge rush for admissions to these schools, where the teaching faculty is recruited based on all-India merit tests.
With increasing demand for KVs, the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) has decided take the admission process online across the country from 2017-18.
A pilot project was conducted in Delhi earlier where KVS received 1.16 lakh applications for just 8,760 seats. The only way to get a seat is through quotas given to Union HRD Minister and Member of Parliament besides other quota for girl child and Right to Education.
Besides the nominal fees compared to public and private schools in Delhi-NCR, which charge over Rs 3,000 fee per month, the total pass percentage of KVs in Class XII CBSE examinations this year was 95.46 per cent.