November 11, 2020.
TED NewsDesk, New Delhi: The Delhi government finally broke its silence over the issue of raising the fee of private schools on Tuesday. It briefed the Delhi High Court about the decision to display the former orders permitting sanction of fee hike proposals on the portal of Directorate of Education (DoE). The government also ensured that it would keep updating the website regularly.
The AAP government informed that it is planning to put up the fee statement along with the enclosures filed by the well-known autonomous private institutions. Besides, it will submit the linked enquiry reports and directions after finalising them.
However, to avoid the violation of the Right to Information Act, the government denied forwarding the information mentioned in the file, documents and other directions that the DoE will pass concerning the final order.
Earlier, an NGO named Justice for All filed a petition asking the DoE to display information related to the approval of orders concerning fee hike of private autonomous schools. Advocate Khagesh B Jha filed the plea that stated that the private independent schools digitally sent the suggestions for increasing to DoE and hence it should upload on its website to notify parents once it agrees to the proposal. The proposal stood on concessional government land. Following the same, the DoE filed an affidavit, thus submitting the details.
The NGO highlighted the confusion of parents over the issue of the raised fee. Owing to this, many schools benefitted from the situation by demanding a hiked amount from the parents.
“In the absence of availability of information parents do not know whether the fee hike proposal is accepted or not accepted and few schools started playing fraud with parents and started collecting increased fees without prior sanction or after rejection of prior sanction proposal” stated the plea.
The petition also outlined the unavailability of information related to the previously permitted fee for any specific institution in the public domain. Moreover, there is no such information related to the tuition fee distinction for a particular academic session “and as a result schools are exploiting parents.”
“The parents have no source to verify what the school is demanding is directed in the government notification,” claimed the petition.
Through the plea, the NGO demanded the DoE to put up directions framed by it concerning the rejection or adoption of the plan before it allows to increase the tuition fee of well-named institutions located in areas granted by land-owning agencies.
Source: Indian Express
