The Centre should enact a law regulating fees structure in private institutions and make provision for providing 50 per cent representation from parents in management committees of private educational institutions, Supreme Court advocate and an RTE campaigner Ashok Agarwal demanded here on Thursday.
“Unless there is a paradigm shift in power from the school managements to parents it is not possible to regulate the private educational stream,’’ Mr. Agarwal said here at a seminar on ‘Right to Education,’ organised by Guntur District Forum for Child Rights at Bar Association Hall. Citing various Delhi High Court judgments during 1997-1999 on Public Interest Litigations (PIL) filed by him during the last two decades, Mr. Agarwal said that even the Supreme Court had dismissed several appeals filed by private school managements and upheld the Delhi HC order that the provisions of Delhi School Education Act should be followed in deciding the fees structure.“The private educational institutions are built on four pillars of philanthropy, community service, non-profit and non-commercialization of their activities,’’ Mr. Agarwal said making it a strong pitch for regulating private education.
In fact, Mr. Agarwal pointed out that Tamil Nadu was the first state to pass a fees regulation Act in 2009.
The act makes it mandatory for all schools which have proposed a hike in fees should submit their proposals to a high-powered committee headed by retired judge and should adhere to the decision of the committee.
Justifying the SC’s judgments upholding the RTE Act, he said that unaided private schools should follow the provisions of RTE Act and provide 25 per cent quota for economically weaker sections, students with special needs, and students from socially disadvantaged sections.
Even the children from socially advantaged sections would benefit from their interaction with children from different backgrounds.
Mr. Agarwal, who has been hailed as a, “scourge of Delhi’s education babus and owners of upscale of private schools,’’ has formed Social Jurist, a lawyer’s forum for taking up public issues.
Chairperson of Child Welfare Committee and secretary of, FFCR, Guntur and Chairman of Seeds Organisation, D. Roshan Kumar, Child Rights Advocacy foundation, Vijayawada, secretary Fr. Koshy, Secretary of Legal Service Authority, Ramana Kumari, programme director, CRAF Francis Thambi and president of Guntur Bar Association Kolli Sankara Rao were present.
