They told schools to take a hike on fees

Updated on: Wednesday, August 18, 2010

With the state government's new rules on school fees hike coming into effect from Monday, TOI looks at a few spunky parents whose lone battles against school managements forced the administration to sit up and take note.

While parents complained about the exorbitant hikes burning a hole in their wallets and eventually accepted them as an inevitable expense associated with life in a metro, there were those who took on school managements over fees hikes.

In March 2008, M S Deshmukh, whose child goes to Balbharti School in Kharghar, took the institution to court over a 60-70 per cent hike in school fees. While the case was being heard, the state government announced plans to regulate school fee, after which the court stayed all hikes till the government committee came out with its report. The case has taken a number of twists and turns since then.

"Primary and pre-primary education is getting expensive by the day and is beyond the reach of those who cannot afford the high fees that schools charge,'' said Deshmukh, whose petition hit newspaper headlines across the state. His battle resulted in a statewide movement against fees hikes.

In addition to battling fees hikes, he also took on the Bansal Committee, set up by the state government to regulate school fees. "We felt the report submitted by the committee was heavily tilted in favour of private school managements,'' said Deshmukh, who helped organise a signature campaign against the report, which saw over 50,000 people register their grievances in black and white.

In March 2008, around the same time that Deshmukh first took on his child's school management, another parent, Avisha Kulkarni, began her battle against a 80 per cent hike in fees by Vibgyor High School in Goregaon, where her daughter studied. "The school had hiked its fee from Rs 47,000 to Rs 83,000 a year,'' said Kulkarni.

"The last two years have been a struggle for all of us battling fees hikes. I suffered the biggest loss as my child was expelled from the school,'' said Kulkarni, the only parent on the Bansal Committee. She actively opposed the committee report.

After widespread discontent amongst parents across Maharashtra over the Bansal committee report, the state government released its new GR on fees hikes. "While we are reasonably satisfied with the new GR, there's one point that we are not too happy about. The GR allows schools to make a reasonable surplus, without quantifying how much this surplus can be,'' Deshmukh added.

They told schools to take a hike on fees

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