Even as the Justice Singaravelu Fee Determination Committee is due to start its enquiry into irregularities in the fees collected at Bala Vidya Mandir, the school’s management has reconstituted the School Management Committee and replaced its principal Srinivasa Raghavan with S. Sujatha.
The announcement was made via a circular sent to the parents on Wednesday night, with the changes coming in to effect on Thursday.
Ms. Sujatha, who was earlier the principal of the group’s Perungudi school, will be the new member secretary of the SMC. Earlier in the day, the management, principal, parents and other stakeholders had been summoned to the DPI campus to present their case.
Once the preliminary report is prepared, the fee fixing committee will conduct a thorough enquiry into the case, sources said.
Sashikala Sriram, who has been with the school for 26 years as vice-principal and principal, will mentor the new principal.
“The Management Committee has terminated the services of S.S. Nathan (former CEO of the BVM group of schools),” the circular states.
On Wednesday, the CBSE also formed a committee and conducted an enquiry into charges of irregularities in fee collection and the functioning of the school.
The enquiries were launched when the fee committee took suo motu cognisance of the issue following news reports of a school circular, issued on May 25, that gave the choice of two fee structures. According to the circular, students paying the fees determined by the fee fixing committee (between Rs. 35,000 and Rs. 39,000) would attend only 4.5 hours of class. Students willing to pay over Rs. 50,000 in fees would have access to around 59 different “Advanced Educational Activities.”
“On Tuesday and Wednesday, the staff members who had come to school to prepare for school reopening were harassed by the management,” one of the staff members said. Some of them had earlier opposed the management’s move to introduce differential fee structures.
On Wednesday afternoon, some of the parents received a circular from the school asking them to collect the excess fees they had paid up already, one of the parents said.
The school reopens on Thursday. The core committee leading the parents’ protest has asked all parents to refrain from sending their children to school on Thursday and Friday.
