Early Times Report
Jammu, June 13: As the Private Schools in Jammu region have been continuously mounting pressure on the parents to pay school fee of their children of lockdown period due to COVID-19 pandemic but the silence maintained by the School Education Department on this issue has been intriguing to everyone.
Amit Kapoor, a social activist, who has been leading the fight in support of the parents, whom children study in private schools, while talking to Early Times criticised the government for not coming clear on the issue due to which the management of private schools have been pressurizing the parents to pay exorbitant school free.
“It is total injustice with the parents of private schools for coercing them for pay the school fee of the lockdown period when no study was held in this period. There are many states including Utrakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnatka etc, which have clearly issued the order that no private schools will charge school fee for these period but in our JK UT, the administration has been maintaining silence on the issue, which is very unfortunate and shocking,” he said.
He alleged that the bureaucracy in the School Education Department, which claimed to be very honest, has been fully supporting the private school owners, which is clear from the fact that it has not sorted out the issue till date.
“It is beyond understanding that earlier the School Education Department has said that no private school will charge fee but yet private schools overlooked the directives of the Government Administration later, when parents staged protests then on the intervention of MOS Jitender Singh, it was decided that only tuition fee will charged from the parents,” he said further adding that despite intervention of MOS, the department has yet to come up with official order, and the continuous delay in this regard, indicates towards the fixed match between the administration and private school owners.
He further said that the private school owners are taking the plea for demanding free from parents for giving salary to the teaching and other staff, although the parents are not averse to this idea and in this case only tuition fee should be charged, which becomes 20% of the total fee.
“The fee, which is charged from students by the private schools, consists of mainly five components including Tuition Fee (20%), Electricity Bill (20%), Water Supply Bill, Misc Expenses , Owner’s Profit,” Kapoor informed.
Pointing out the claims made by the private schools of suffering loss, Amit Kapoor alleged that in order to substantiate their claim, the owners should make public the five years audit reports of their schools, which will clear the picture of their false claims. He also criticised the JK Admin for taking the absurd decision of opening schools in June. He further alleged that the Director School Education Jammu has totally shown a casual approach in this entire issue and continues to keep silence, which is indirectly supporting private schools.
“Already students have been facing huge hardships due to 2G network as they are not able to access internet properly for study purpose, due low speed. More shockingly, the private schools are also taking papers during this lockdown, which is the most absurd and unrealistic thing in this scenario,” he alleged further adding nobody from the Government ask these private schools to stop recommending unnecessary books and costly books. How it is possible that the books of Government Schools cost near about Rs 600 and the books of private schools cost Rs 6000-12000. |
