SRINAGAR: Even as the government keeps on claiming that it has introduced a number of reforms in the school education sector of Kashmir, such claims fall flat when one of the most significant aspects of making a law to frame a proper fee structure for the private schools of the state is yet to be introduced.
Parents of students studying in different private schools said that the the ‘fleecing’ of students continues in spite of the government ‘s (Regulation) Act and other regulatory bodies.
The Education Department (DSEK) had already asked the private schools not to charge admission fee every year and also refrain from forcing the students to purchase uniforms, books and stationery from specified shops, but the instructions are being flouted with impunity.
The department had also asked the private schools to inform about the fee structure, but most of the schools have not submitted the desired information. The parents alleged that the private schools were not following the instructions and fleecing the students on one pretext or the other.
“The schools are not charging the admission fee from old students, but have hiked the fee and other charges and even allowed the uniform and stationery vends in the vicinity of the school,” they alleged.
In the absence of a law governing the fee structures, the private schools are openly indulging in arbitrariness due to which the parents are forced to shell out extra money for the education of their wards.
“The whimsicality of the private schools cannot be checked until and unless a law is being introduced by the state government to frame the fee structures of the educational institutions,” said Abdul Majeed, a parent whose son studies in a private school.
In order to regulate the fee structures, the state government had brought in a rule through a notification wherein it was made mandatory for the private schools to publish their fee structures in the newspapers annually but the rule was nowhere to be seen after few years of its inception.
“Only few private schools that too which fall in the lower level category adhered to the notification issued earlier. The big sharks, in simple words, the influential private schools didn’t deem it fit to comply with the rule. Now, almost all the private schools have stopped the publication of the fee structures,” wishing anonymity said an officer of the Education department.
The parents criticised the Private Schools Association of Jammu and Kashmir (PSAJK) for giving the false assurances over and over again on the introduction and enactment of a new law to govern the fee structures of the private schools.
Earlier on January 28 this year, the committee approved an annual fee hike of 6 per cent for private schools. An order issued by it said, “The private schools may raise their fee structure annually by not more than 6 per cent on the fee structure existing as on August 1, 2018.” However, the parents’ body slammed the order.
“We jointly condemn the order in clear words as it is against parental interests and sets a wrong precedent for others to follow. The committee gave in to the pressure of the school mafia for reasons best known to it,” said president of the association.
The committee was established in 2015 after the orders of the Supreme Court. It has a chairman and three members. The committee said it had taken various parental bodies and school associations on board while drafting the order. (PTK)
