State mulls deferring fee payment of pvt schools

Accordingly, as was done by the Reserve Bank of India, which announced a three month moratorium on EMI payments, the Tamil Nadu Private School Fixation Committee is holding discussions on an initiative that could provide relief to citizens hit by the lockdown.

A senior official from the School Education Department told DT Next that during the last one week there were complaints from parents across the State that private schools have started to send fees payment reminder messages over mobile phones.

“Requests have also come from parents working in private firms to grant relaxation in the time frame to be followed for paying fees as they were not sure about getting March salary due to lockdown,” said the official adding that “considering their demands carefully, discussions are underway to come up with a decision that could benefit the general public, especially parents from middle-class.”

According to the official, the parents might be asked to pay the fees in easy instalments to reduce financial stress, especially at this point. “Also, the private schools will also be asked to cooperate with the government during the crisis amid corona threat,” he said.

Stating that the district education officers have been instructed to monitor the private schools demanding fees immediately, the official said: “If any school continues to harass the parents even after the warning, strict action will be taken even to the extent of withdrawal of the recognition.” 

Tamil Nadu government has postponed the evaluation of answer sheets for the State board exams to Classes 11 and 12. A government order in this regard was issued on Thursday. The evaluation was originally scheduled from April 7 and the process was expected to go on for 10 days. However, the Union government later announced a nationwide lockdown till April 14 making it impossible for the evaluation process to be carried out, said officials. The State government order further said the rescheduled dates for evaluation of answer sheets will be announced later. The evaluation process begins with the transportation of answer sheets from zonal level to evaluation camps set up at the district headquarters. Accordingly, answer sheets, which are evaluated, will be scanned and the CD containing answer sheet data will be submitted to the Chief Controller of Examination. After verifying the CD data from the official concerned, the results will be announced accordingly.