The Active Parents Forum of Hyderabad Public Schools (HPS) in Begumpet and Ramanthapur met Municipal Administration Minister K.T. Rama Rao and urged him to impress upon the HPS Board of Management not to press for full fee for this academic year given the pandemic situation.
Forum representatives Ashok Kumar and Anand Reddy explained to the Minister that the management was flouting the government directions on the collection of fee and sought his intervention in fee reduction. They said parents are demanding 40% reduction in the existing fee since there were no classes, no mess facility and any other activity that is usually included in the fee structure.
They also handed over a memorandum to the Minister, which they had earlier submitted to Special Chief Secretary Chitra Ramachandran, explaining how the parents were being literally threatened and children ‘insulted’ for not paying the fee. The memorandum said that the HPS Society has a corpus fund of more than ₹27 crore while Begumpet school has collected a fee of ₹ 51 crore and Ramanthapur school ₹26 crore.
The schools have also saved crore of rupees on maintenance and other academic and administrative related aspects and the parents have requested them several times fee reduction keeping in view of loss income for them due to the pandemic. However, the school management has been ignoring their appeals and was avoiding their collective appeal. The parents said they will be forced to knock the doors of appropriate authority, forum, tribunal or the court for justice.
