Early decision sought on fees, syllabus from new government

Updated on: Monday, May 16, 2011

Managements of private matriculation schools have tuned their eyes and ears to news from the new State government.

With a fortnight to go for the start of the new academic year, the managements are looking forward to a directive on the fees. And change in uniform, equitable syllabus (Samacheer kalvi), if any.

Following complaints from parents of exorbitant fees, the outgoing Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government enacted the Tamil Nadu Schools Regulation of Collection of Fee Act, 2009 and constituted a committee to go into the issue.

The Justice K. Govindarajan Committee, after receiving inputs from schools, came out with a recommendation for each private school in the State. It contained the class-wise annual fees the schools should collect.

Unhappy with the recommendation, which contained discrepancies, the managements preferred appeals with the Committee, which under Justice Ravirajapandian is looking into the issue.

The Committee is yet to come out with its orders on the appeals.

Representatives of the private school managements' association say they want the new government to address the issue at the earliest. The new academic year is only a couple of weeks away but by then, the managements and also the parents must know how much to collect.

An early decision will help the school managements, which say that the decision to go by the Committee-recommended fees in the last academic year forced them to curtail many development programmes.

The parents only concur with the managements. R. Mani Mohan, president of the parents' association, says that the Committee must come up with the orders at the earliest so that the parents will know how much they will have to cough up.

Irrespective of the Committee's order, the government can also go ahead and form the tripartite committee, involving parents, managements and government representatives, to go into the fees issue but the decision must be implemented only for the 2012-13 academic year as there is too little time left this year.

The AIADMK has promised the formation of such a tripartite committee in its election manifesto.

The managements are looking forward to an announcement on the uniform, equitable syllabus. The State Government introduced the syllabus for classes I and VI in the last academic year and said it would extend it to all classes in the next (2011-12) academic year.

From June this year, students of all schools, barring the ones that follow CBSE, ICSE or international syllabi, will go by the common syllabus.

The Government has, however, not followed up on the announcement on the books front. The private school managements have a choice – they can either choose the government books from those published by the approved publishers.

But the government has not finalised the list of approved publishers, representatives of the managements say. This lack of choice has forced the managements to go for the books the Government prints and distributes.

The managements have another problem as well. They do not know with what books to teach the kindergarten students with. Prior to the implementation of the uniform, equitable syllabus, the managements went into matriculation books for the lower kindergarten and the upper kindergarten.

After the introduction of the new syllabus, the schools are wondering what to do. The Government has not come out with books for the two classes because the Government-run schools do not have the kindergarten concept. They have balwadis or child care centres.

The managements want the new government to convert the balwadis into kindergarten and come out with syllabus for the two classes as well. The managements and parents say that even if the government wants to review the new syllabus it must do in such a way that the current academic year is in no way disturbed.

Early decision sought on fees, syllabus from new government

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