CM not keen on regulating fees in private educational institutions: Shabbir Ali

Hyderabad: Senior Congress leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir has alleged that the TRS government is not serious about regulating the exorbitant fees being collected by the private educational institutions in the state.

"The decision taken by the state cabinet to constitute a cabinet sub-committee and then draft a new law to regulate fees in private educational institutions is proof that it has failed to prevent the loot by private schools and colleges in the last seven years. It also means that the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee constituted by the state government was a farce and it could not stop extortion of huge amounts by private schools and colleges," Ali alleged in a statement on Tuesday.

He said the government was trying to delay a decision. It would take at least six to eight months for the submission of a report by the cabinet sub-committee and passing of law in the assembly. Somehow, Chief Minister Chandrashekar Rao would ensure that the fee regulation gets delayed till 2023 by giving one more year to the private institutions to extort money from the parents, he said.

Ali demanded that the TRS government must prove its honesty by implementing the proposed laws from the coming academic year 2022-23. "Why a separate law is needed to regulate the fee in private schools," he asked while pointing out that the previous Congress government regulated the fee by just issuing a GO.

The Congress leader noted that on August 6, 2009, the Congress government issued GO-91 to regulate the fees.

It ordered that the admission fee should not be more than Rs 100 and registration fee just Rs 500. It was directed in the GO that the tuition fee shall be fixed based on the salaries paid to the teachers and staff, retirement benefits, running expenditure, infrastructure and facilities available including any special fee for any specific purpose and development fee. Any activity which is not directly linked to education, if provided, shall be optional to the student and shall not be built as part of the tuition fee,” it had been stipulated.

He said that the Tirupathi Rao committee which studied the subject submitted the report to the government after six extensions, on December 30, 2011. “Despite legal cases, the guidelines to regulate fees in private schools were put in place. The present TRS government, however, avoided implementing those guidelines,” he said.