Nagpur: The agony of parents seems to have no end as several of them staged an agitation at Civil Line based prominent school against school’s fees policy, amid the novel CoronaVirus (COVID-19) on Tuesday.
Parents have complained that private schools have charged fees for the facilities their wards are not going to avail, at least during the initial months of the academic year when teaching-learning is taking place online.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Monday gave his nod to a proposal to start schools in a phased manner across the state, prompting the Education department to release instructions on the same, including a detailed standard operating procedure (SOP) on how the plan would be rolled out.
While many schools have retained the fee structure for the academic year 2020-2021, parents said schools have charged fees for use of libraries, laboratories, sports, and gymnasium facilities, among others, that students are unable to access. The move has brought financial burden on parents, who are already facing pay-cuts owing to global pandemic.
Nagpur Today had been receiving a series of complaints about the whimsical move of prominent educational institutions seeking money from gullible parents on the pretext of online classes. Despite exposing the matter, the Education Department, so far had failed to take any stern cognizance in this regard. This was followed by the series of protests of the parents against the mushrooming irregularities in their wards’ schools.
Nagpur Today spoke to Anil Pardhi, Deputy Director of Education, Nagpur Division in this regard who only referred to the state government’s resolution on school fee structure. Talking to NT, Pardhi said, “The state government has already issued GR on fee regulation in schools. The circular says that the schools should not hike fees for the fresh academic session and should also facilitate instalments for the convenience of the parents.” He however said that no call has been taken so far on reducing the fees.
