Hyderabad: Mass petitions have been filed against 36 schools in three districts - Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy and Medchal - for charging fees at variance with the prescribed fee structure and for operating without being properly registered. The petitions were submitted to the respective district collectors and district education officers by the Forum Against Corruption (FAC).
“Education is becoming a business and schools are looting parents in the name of amenities and non academic activities. Certain schools are charging around Rs 35,000 only for providing a bus service. And many of the non academic activities are being included in the academic fee structure,” says Vijay Gopal from the Forum Against Corruption.”
He says school boards these days are not even showing the affiliation number and the syllabus, as they did just a couple of years ago.
Similar complaints have been made in court but are stuck there. Ashish Naredi from the Hyderabad Schools Parents Association (HSPA), says, “We have filed cases on around 162 schools for collecting high fees. Even notices were served to these schools. However nothing has happened after that. There were no further hearings and the schools did not regulate their fees and some even have got a stay order.”
According to Government Order MS. No.1, 1994, a school should not make more than five per cent profit and fifty per cent of the collected fees should go towards teachers’ salaries. Yet schools are making up to 30 per cent profit, say those in the know.
Another GO, No 42, regulates the fees, according to whether the school is in a rural or urban locality, but private institutions have managed to get a stay order on that too, and as of now there is no updated Gover-nment order regulating the fee structure in schools.
A committee called the Tirupati Rao committee was constituted to regulate school fees but though the committee released its repo-rt in December 2017, it has not been made public nor has it been acted upon according to Naganti Nara-yana, education expert fro-m the Centre for Educa-tional Research and Analysis (CERA)
