Indore: Irked parents protest in front of Chameli Devi Public School over management's negligent behavior

Indore: Irked parents protest in front of Chameli Devi Public School over management's negligent behavior

Staff ReporterUpdated: Tuesday, October 27, 2020, 04:07 PM IST
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Parents protest in front of Chameli Devi Public School, police intervened to facilitate the matter |

Indore: Exasperated by negligent behaviour of Chameli Devi Public School located on Kesar Bagh Road, parents protested in front of the school demanding full disclosure of school expenses on Tuesday. However, parents were forcefully removed from the premises by cops after attempt to facilitate discussion between school management and parents.

Last week, parents sat on a ‘dharna’ (indefinite strike) in front of the school on Thursday. With an assurance of resolution from the school, parents had broken the strike and agreed to meet this week.

However, school authorities did not have a resolution and attempted to console them by putting forward their demands to the management.

Parents asked the school management to disclose the actual expenditure of the school this year. They demanded to set an appropriate fee, paying off expenditures for the year citing financial issues faced by parents due to lockdown and COVID-19 outspread.

Parents urged the administration to discuss the fee related issues openly with parents. Parents announced an indefinite strike till the school principal or owner met them. Parents demanded school management to bring transparency in their system and discuss fee related matters.

Parent coordinator Vinod Srivastava cited guidelines from school education department, governance rules and CBSE accreditation rules quoting that schools are not businesses run for earning profits. “Schools are to be run as public service, so charging high fee for earning huge profits is not acceptable especially in such troubled times,” he said.

“There has been an 80 percent reduction in school expenses, hence it is not justifiable to charge the entire fees under the disguise of tuition fees by the school,” Srivastava said.

He added that parents are willing to comply with court's judgment and are ready to pay tuition fees. “However, proper determination of tuition fees for online studies is also mandatory, which is about 25 percent of the regular fees charged,” Srivastava said.

On behalf of school management, school principal Sangeeta Poddar said, “We have provided fee relief of 15 percent and most parents have thanked us for the same. Now, if parents are demanding 75 percent fee relief then we will inform the management about it. We will discuss it later based on whatever management says.”

On this, parents asked the principal to speak to management in front of them, as the same matter was delayed last week with same assurance. “We have been cooperating with the school, buying uniform and books from allotted stores and even accepting inflated private publisher books over NCERT, school must cooperate now,” Srivastava said on behalf of parents.

He added management should openly speak to parents and come to a decision. Despite police intervention and urge to start an open dialogue via video call meeting, it was not implemented.

With Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activists joining the protest, school and police forcefully removed parents from school premises.

Parents’ demands

- Discussion with School Management Committee.

- Disclosure of last year's balance sheet of the school.

- Determination of actual expenditure for this year according to taxation laws.

- To re-start online classes for children even in absence of fees.

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