Indore: After Parents expressed anger and grief while school association assured compliance to the order of Madhya Pradesh (MP) High Court (HC) regarding private unaided schools charging tuition fee only. Parents will be appealing to the state government to challenge the order.
HC stated that private unaided schools would only charge tuition fee — in keeping with its interim order of September 1, 2020 — and there will be no hike in the session 2020-21 session till the government declares that the pandemic is over and schools return to normal.
Disposing of a bunch of petitions on private school fees during Covid-19 shutdown, HC asked schools to ensure that no student is deprived of quality education by adopting digital /online platforms evolved by the Government of India under ‘Pragyata’.
However, Indore parent association held a meeting on Friday discussing the matter.
“Parents are disappointed by the High Court order. In a situation where the school is running only 2 to 3 hours instead of 8 to 10 hours, many expenses of schools have been reduced,” Anurodh Jain, parent representative, said.
He added that parents were expecting to get some relief from HC. “This is the failure of the state government, which has not enacted any law governing fee in 15 years, as a result of which the parents of poor and middle class families are suffering,” Jain said.
He added that parents will be talking to government to defend their order in SC and bring an act to control and set an appropriate school fee.
School association assures compliance
Madhya Pradesh Board Private School Association run under Sarthak Private School Sangathan cited the letter and passed on an advisory to all the unaided private schools to comply with the order.
Gopal Soni and Shambulal Prajapati from the association said, “We urge all the schools to ensure compliance to the HC order and charge only tuition fee for the academic session 2020-21.”
The letter floated to all the schools added that schools cannot charge separately for conducting online classes. “There is no fee relief announced for academic session 2019-20, hence, parents must clear the dues and pay the requisite fee for the session,” the letter said.
Further, the association representatives asked the schools to take fee payment in smaller instalments if parents are unable to pay in lump sum.
