January 12, 2021
TED NewsDesk, Maharashtra: The effect of COVID-19 is visible in almost every sector. All the educational institutions shifted to the online mode of education since the first lockdown in the country. Be it admission or examinations all are now a part of the digital world. Amid all these transformations, some parents of students studying at Somaiya School, Vidyavihar raised an issue complaining about the school barring their kids from appearing in examinations on January 11. The school alleged that it provided various payment facilities to the parents. However, the parents failed to pay the fees of their wards by the allotted time.
Mr Virendra Singh, a parent of a Class 5 student, elaborated how his daughter failed in her attempts to access the given link for her Maths exam. The exam was timed at 8 am on Monday. He further added that he could only pay one instalment due to some economic crisis. The school, however, asked him to pay the remaining amount in a go. The due amount was around Rs. 1 lakh.
“Even the zoom link meant for proctoring wasn’t working. First, we thought that it must be a technical glitch from our end. But soon, more parents began writing on the parents’ group. When we called the teachers, we were told that the children were not being allowed due to pending fee payments. Teachers asked us to speak to the school but no one from the school was ready to speak to us,” said Singh.
“There has been some financial pressure and we promised the school that we will pay one more instalment now and others soon. But they asked for the whole amount at once,” he added.
“The management had made available various options for payment of fees including that of paying in four quarterly instalments, monthly instalments, and deferred payment on a case to case basis, should conditions not permit a parent to pay at the stipulated time. Despite all our efforts to ease the burden on parents, some have not even paid first/second instalments even though we are now approaching the end of the current academic year. Thus with a heavy heart, we have had to restrict the defaulting students from appearing for internal tests which can be retaken at any point in time. None of the defaulting students scheduled to appear in the CBSE board exam this year have been barred from appearing in the ongoing pre-board exams,” said one of the spokespeople from the school.
One of the parents alleged that the school pressurized them by making several calls to ask for the fees, over the past few days.
“We have been receiving calls and emails and some of us ended up paying in pressure. But some others who are unable to pay are facing a tough time,” said a parent.
Payment of such large amounts might not be an easy task for some families as of the present times. The school authorities and parents should find a way out of the situation to continue the teaching-learning process smoothly.
Source: Hindustan Times
