The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday announced that it would stage peaceful demonstrations in front of schools collecting exorbitant admission and tuition fees in a bid to bring pressure on the government to take some action.
“Hyderabad has the dubious distinction of collecting the highest school fees when compared to other cities, including Delhi and Bengaluru, with an average of 40% hike every year. The fees being collected by the managements is anywhere between ₹60,000 and ₹4.50 lakh with no fee regulation by the government,” said party chief K. Laxman. Addressing a round table meeting on ‘Exorbitant fee structure in corporate and private schools’ organised by the party, he pointed out that though there were no elections for the next five years, his party was ready to take up the cause of increasing fees as ‘social responsibility’ since it was causing distress in the middle and lower-middle classes.
“The government has given a free hand to corporate schools and has not paid heed to the recommendations made by the official fee regulation committee. Save for the residential schools, government schools have been denied of infrastructure and other facilities leaving parents and children at the mercy of private schools,” he charged.
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‘Notices withdrawn’
The BJP president claimed that owing to his persistent questions on the exorbitant fees in the last Assembly, the government had served notices to 12 schools, but quietly withdrew them later, without any explanation, after a meeting with the managements. Mr. Laxman had a word of praise for the untiring efforts of the Hyderabad School Parents’ Association (HSPA) in highlighting the cause.
The meeting, also attended by citizens’ groups, teachers’ associations and others, would be the first step towards formulating an action plan to take it up as a ‘people’s movement’. Party general secretary G. Manohar Reddy, Yuva Morcha in-charge G. Bharat Goud and others participated.
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