Five government resolutions (GRs) since March on fee hike keep warring parents and schools confused

Parents, schools go Grrr...

Five government resolutions (GRs) since March on fee hike keep warring parents and schools confused

Even as the issue of fee hikes in city schools generates heat with more parents set to join the battle against schools, NGOs and educationists are pointing out that it is the conflicting orders issued by the school education department and its lethargy that has led to all the confusion.

In three months, the government put out five different government resolutions (GRs) dealing with school fee hike issue, each time turning the rules on their head. If at one point the authorities seemed to be sympathising with parents, on other occasions they were blamed for playing into the hands of school managements by educationists.

Such is the state of affairs that parents who have no access to government files are left clueless and often end up being manipulated by school managements who show backdated GRs as proof, say NGOs.

"The latest GR is very clear about what should and shouldn't be, but there needs to be some seriousness on the part of authorities to implement it. Since they are lax about it, schools take advantage of the situation and misguide parents," said Jayant Jain, president of Forum for Fairness in Education. "In fact, parents are shown old GRs and told that as even these rules were issued by the same authorities, these are applicable too."

In the city, besides one-day strikes from various parent bodies, parents of students from DY Patil School, Rosary School and Crescent High School have been fighting against the fee hike for months.

"The moment a GR is issued where we think we have succeeded, another rule comes along that turns our efforts on their head," said Sandeep Chavan, a representative of DY Patil Parents Association. "Now, leaving all our work, we shall have to keep track of GRs. In fact, now even (school) managements have stopped taking them seriously."

School managements agree that the indecisiveness of the school education department has cost them dear.

"We hiked our fees based on a GR, only to hear within 15 days that they had changed their mind. After that, we had parents at our door shouting for justice," said a principal of a city school who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The constant see-saw of rules has made the fee hike issue a joke. We are sure that within two weeks they will change their mind again."

Government resolutions since March

MiD DAY takes a look at the various GRs since March and comes out with the verdict: it is all very confusing indeed.

GR No. 1 on March 4: The GR said no school could hike fees and would have to follow the old fee structure. A violation of the GR would mean strict action from the school education department, while those that had already collected excess fees would have to refund it.

GR No. 2 and 3 on May 21: Two GRs were issued on the same day. One of them said that schools were now allowed to hike fees up to 50 per cent to pay revised salaries of teachers. But at same time, the hike would have to be approved by the deputy director of education and the Parent-Teacher Association of the school.

The GR was especially confusing as it did not specify which academic year the 50 per cent fee hike was to be effective. It also did not specify what to do in the case of schools that had already hiked fees.

GR No 4 on June 19: The government stayed the previous two GRs and allowed the school to hike fees in proportion to the amount required to pay salaries. This time, no upper limit or percentage was set.

GR No 5 on July 15: The GR was to be applicable from August 15. Once again, this GR giving back power to the parents and DDE. While schools were allowed to submit a proposal for fee hike, the government retained the right to monitor each school to ensure it was not run for profiteering.

Again, the GR turned out to be confusing, as it allowed schools to charge a "reasonable surplus" without specifying any upper limit for it, leaving the definition of reasonable a grey area.

Also, the implementation year of the GR is 2009-2010, which got over months ago. This means schools that had hiked fees based on earlier GRs have to now refund fees or parents have to pay the difference for the previous year, both highly impractical solutions.