Many private schools are reportedly not adhering to the government order to reduce tuition fees and are continuing to collect the full amount for the 2020-21 academic year. This is in violation of the government norms.
B.N. Yogananda, member of the Karnataka State Private Schools Parents Associations Coordination Committee, said they had received complaints from parents that schools were still calling them and pressurising them to pay the full fees. Instead of reducing tuition rates by 30% as prescribed by the government, managements are asking parents to pay fees for two terms, with the promise that the charges for the third term will be waived, he said.
“We want schools to calculate and collect only 70% of the tuition fees and waive amounts collected under other heads. We do not want schools to take part in tokenism and simply waive a portion of the fees,” Mr. Yogananda said.
A parent of a CBSE affiliated school in Bengaluru North shared the fee structure of the school displayed on their portal on Monday. It showed that the school continued to demand activity fees and outsourced fees. “Despite clear instructions by the government, the school continues to show the old fee structure. If they do not modify the fees, we will file a complaint with the district-level committee formed by the Department of Public Instruction (DPI),” the parent said.
Many schools had already removed the fee structure from their website or internal portals. An official of DPI pointed out that parents can lodge a complaint against school managements if they charged the same fee as last academic year. “If they produce the necessary documents such as the fee receipts along with the complaint, we will take action against the school after we investigate the matter,” the senior official said.
