The Karnataka government on Friday announced a compulsory 30 per cent reduction in the tuition fee across all private school managements for the current academic year (2020-21).
The decision follows several protests by parents' associations who are opposed to private schools sticking to their fee structure even during a pandemic when people are suffering financial stress.
For the past several weeks, the parents' associations had been staging protests demanding the state government to intervene and reduce the school fees. They also expressed their inability to pay the fee, stating it was hefty and that many people had suffered job loss and salary cuts. Moreover, the schools have been conducting only online classes, they argued.
The school managements, on the other hand, contended that they were unable to pay the salaries to the teachers as many parents had not paid the first term fee despite the government’s direction to do so.
Addressing a press meet, Primary and Secondary Education Minister S. Suresh Kumar said, "All the private schools irrespective of which board they follow, will be allowed to charge only 70 per cent of the tuition fee collected last year (2019-2020) for the current academic year. The schools cannot collect any other fee but the reduced tuition fee. However, we welcome any school that voluntarily reduces the fee further. In fact, many private schools had agreed for a 25 to 30 per cent reduction in fee."
"The schools should make provision for payment of the tuition fee in three instalments. If any parent has already paid the full amount of the fees this year, the excess amount paid can be adjusted for the next academic year. The department will set up district and state level committees to resolve any disputes over excess school fee," said Kumar, adding that he had held wider consultations with educationists, elected representatives from the Graduates and Teachers constituencies, private school managements and parents' associations before taking the decision to reduce the fee.
The tug-of-war between the parents and the private school managements reached a peak after many schools threatened to discontinue the online classes for students who failed to pay the fee. The parents had threatened to stage a massive protest on Saturday demanding the state government's intervention.
"The government has exercised its powers under the RTE Act and also the Epidemic Diseases Management Act to fix the fee structure for this academic year. I was hoping the dispute over the fees would be resolved amicably between the parents and the school managements as many parents had stood in a queue all night to get admission into the schools and considered themselves lucky to have got through. But today, the relation between the two has soured," lamented the minister.
Meanwhile, some private school managements have expressed their disgruntlement over the fee reduction. "It is not a feasible solution. We are paying teachers' salaries, interest on loans, insurance and other service charges. Many parents have not paid even the last year's fees. Only bigger schools charging a lakh or two as fee can comply with this order," said Shashi Kumar D., general secretary, Karnataka Associated Management of English Medium Schools (KAMS).
