School fees hike turns grave concern of present days

Updated on: Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Chennai: With school fees sky rocketing without any prescribed format, families are finding it difficult to cope but the school managements seem to have their own reasons for the unprecedented raise.

Schools demanding huge sum as donation at the time of admission is not uncommon, but the schools increasing the tuition fees without any prior notice has put the parents in a major fix.

A parent of class V CBSE student laments that their daughterâ€™s school fees had shot up by Rs 3000/- per term.

The situation is the same in most of the schools across the state, be it several Matriculation, Anglo-Indian, government-aided, but even to the worst the government schools have started to follow the same principle.

According to School Education Minister Thangam Thennarasu, the Govt would be taking a decision regarding this in the forth-coming assembly sessions. Elaborating on the issue, the department had received 87 complaints against various schools for collecting exorbitant fees from students.

On the other hand, heads of government schools say it is virtually impossible to run a school with the present fee structure. The school had to take care of its electricity bill, printing charges and so many miscellaneous expenses.

Without some excess of pecuniary from the Govt, the state schools find it difficult meet all these needs, says the head of a government school.

However, the heads of Govt schools find it difficult to meet overheads like repair and maintenance that Govt virtually doesnâ€™t support with any funds. It is easy to say we are charging excess fees. But tell us how to pay for these expenses, adds an Headmaster of a Govt school.

Even the top elite schools in the city never seem to miss a chance to collect additional fees.

At a CBSE school in South Chennai, students going to Class XI were asked to pay Rs.15, 000 in addition to the first term fee of nearly Rs.9, 000. However, parents were given a receipt only for the first-term fee.

The irate parent said that when asked about the excess fee charged by the school, the school authorities seemed to tell, that it was for additional facilities.

Kalvimalar

School fees hike turns grave concern of present days

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