Govt may step in as fee issue boils over at schools

Following a series of complaints that parents were forced to pay fees soon after the schools reopened last week, the Tamil Nadu government is soon expected to bring an amicable solution to the vexed issue.

Schools, including self-financing ones, were opened from February 1 for the students studying from Classes 1 to 12 across the State due to easing of pandemic situation.

However, there were protest by the parents at several private schools alleging that their wards were not allowed to attend the classes demanding that they pay the fees immediately. Many videos also went viral on social media in this regard.

A senior official from the School Education Department, seeking anonymity, said the Tamil Nadu School Fees Regulation Committee had already fixed the fee for private schools. “At present, the government is taking action against the private schools which collect extra fees than the prescribed one,” he added.

Pointing out that the issue of demanding full fees from the parents had started after the first lockdown when the schools reopened, he said “the Madras High Court also allowed the private schools to collect only 85 per cent of the school fees in six installments for the 2021-22 academic year from parents, who were financially affected due to lockdown”.

Stating that the authorities were already discussing the issue with private school associations to bring a detailed fees collection plan, which does not affect the parents, the official said “we will also instruct that the amicable plan would exist till normalcy returns after pandemic”.

However, private schools claim that due to non-payment of fees, salaries to the teachers could not be disbursed, and in addition, other expenses such as electricity bills and tax payments, and building maintenance charges could not be done.

KR Nandhakumar, general secretary of Tamil Nadu Private Nursery, Primary, Matriculation, Higher Secondary, and CBSE Schools Association claimed that many parents have not paid even 50 per cent of the fees in several schools.

“We need to buy textbooks and notebooks only after collecting the prescribed fees,” he said adding “many private schools, which could not collect fees from the parents, could not retain the teachers, who had resigned due to salary issues”. He said the government should solve the issue immediately to solve the financial crisis of many private schools.