After struggling for getting their children’s names short-listed for nursery admissions, parents in the Capital are now facing fee woes in private unaided schools. Many schools are charging as much as Rs. 1.6 lakh for admission at the entry-level classes without even giving a break-up of the fee structure to the students. Nirmal Bhartia School in Dwarka is one such school.
Parents who came to the school for taking admission for their children complained that despite repeated requests, the school authorities refused to give a fee structure and insisted that it would be available only by March.
Santosh Sharma, a parent who came to the school for his son’s admission, said, “The school is charging Rs. 1.6 lakh for my son’s admission at the entry-level class. They want me to pay Rs. 60,000 right now and the rest later, but are not ready to give me a break-up of the structure. This is the second time I am coming to the school for getting a fee structure, but they have been denying it .” It was only after Mr. Sharma filed a complaint with the Directorate of Education on Monday afternoon that the school agreed to provide the fee break-up. “When I filed a complaint with the DOE, the school pulled out their fee structure from the year 2014 and handed it over to me. In fact that has the break-up only for Rs. 1.27 lakh,” Mr. Sharma added.
Officials at the DOE confirmed receiving the complaint against Nirmal Bhartia School. “We received a complaint against Nirmal Bhartia School about irregularities in nursery admission. The school principal was contacted and the matter was sorted out,” said a DOE official.
Others also faced similar problems at the school. Ashima Jain, a woman who came for his son’s admission, said, “If the school is asking for such an exorbitant fee , they should at least give the break-up. This way, they can come up with any kind of explanation later for the money that they have taken from us.”
On being confronted on the issue, a school official said, “We have certain norms in our school that all parents seeking admission for their wards should follow.”
