09 September,2010 08:20 AM IST | | Alifiya Khan
Four government resolutions, a court battle, hunger strikes and multiple protests later, parents were told that their battle is futile and they would have to bow to school managements and accept fee hikes.
But unwilling to give up, parents across the state held a meeting in Mumbai yesterday attended by more than 250 representatives from across the state, including over 30 parents from the city.
The result was that parents from the city, who came together under the flagship organisation called Pune City Parents Association (PCPA), have decided to contest the fee hike issue in a court of law separately.
The organisation will soon file a separate PIL in the high court demanding that a law be passed to regulate fee hikes in private unaided schools.
"At the state level meeting we found many others like us who were struggling with the fee hike issue and frustrated after the HC allowed schools to hike fees.
We have decided to defy it and will pay the old school fees. We are not scared if managements expel students as we want the government to fulfil its duty of providing education to children and ensuring that private schools don't take advantage of us," said PCPA president Ashok Bamboli, whose son studies in Rosary High School.
"There will be no hunger protests or morchas anymore. And now we have the confidence of numbers too," said Ajay Sathe, another parent representative from the city.
