Now, NGO trying to have equal fees in schools

Here’s a sigh of relief for all those parents who worry about their children’s constant fee hikes every year. A Non government organisation (NGO) from Pune has come with the new parameters which will decide fees from kindergarten to class 12 and the draft will be soon submitted to state education department. Even while Maharashtra state has a fee regulation act it failed badly and parent continued complaining about regular fee hikes in the school.This draft made by state education department will decide the fees taking into consideration all the parameters of the school. According to a report published in Hindustan Times,“We studied the balance sheets of different schools across Maharashtra to decide a reasonable amount,” said Vaishali Bafna, member of Pune-based Syscom, which had filed a petition against the haphazard first-year junior college (FYJC) admissions in the Bombay high court last year. Agreeing that the amount can’t be the same in all schools, Bafna said the NGO is trying to fix the parameters to raise the fees.“While in some schools, the fees are exorbitant, the quality of education or facilities are poor,” said Bafna. “This will stop only if the government compels schools to follow a prescribed format to fix the fees.” In this wake of haphazard fee hikes, parent in Mumbai are planning to go on an indefinite hunger strike from to protest against the fee hikes. In a recent survey, 55% of parents from Maharashtra admitted that schools have hiked fees in the range of 11% to 20%.Parents believe that there should be some limit on schools from the government for fee hikes. According to the Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Regulation of collection of fees) Act, 2011, effective since December, 2015, the school management must put forth the proposed fees for the approval of the PTA executive panel. If there is more than 15% difference in the fees proposed by the management and those approved by the PTA, then they can approach divisional fee regulatory committees or state-level revision committee.