Sixth Pay Commission: Lovely rejects demand for 50 pc hike in school fees
Chinki Sinha
New delhi, October 14 The Directorate of Education will not concede to the demand of private, unaided schools to hike the fees by at least 50 per cent in order to clear arrears and pay the salary scale as recommended by the Sixth Pay Commission.
Delhi Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely said the request of schools for a fee hike will be reviewed and only after assessing their balance sheets will they be allowed to hike fees.
“The fee hike will depend on a case-by-case basis,” he said. “If some school is in financial crisis, we will help.”
Earlier this month, the National Progressive Schools Conference had sent a letter to the Directorate of Education for permission to increase fees by 50 to 60 per cent. The letter said schools’ expenditure will increase by 50 per cent on an average.
Principal of Mahavir Model Senior School and Chairman of the National Progressive Schools Conference S L Jain said he was hopeful the government would consider their request.
The NPSC had approached the state under Section 17(3) of the Delhi Education Act to allow us to raise tuition fees.
“It is essential. If they don’t do it, then the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission will be delayed,” Jain said. Though each school will determine the increase in fees, the average is expected to be Rs 2,000 per quarter. The hike could be effective as soon as November.
The schools will have to send in a proposal for the fee hike, which will then be evaluated by a committee, Lovely said.
There are about 110 schools under the NPSC. But Lovely said the government would not permit a blanket hike for all schools. School have been increasing tuition fee by 10 per cent every year and that money could be used for paying the arrears, he said.
“Where is all that money?” he said. “We have records of all the schools. Some schools really need the money. Some might not.” But the statement is already drawing flak from private schools.
S K Bhattacharya, the president of the action committee for all associations of private schools in the city, said the minister must refrain from making such statements before reviewing the implications of the Sixth Pay Commission’s recommendations.
“We have worked it out. It is going to be more than 60 per cent,” he said. “We have to pay arrears for 32 months.”
He said the private, unaided schools rely on tuition fees for disbursing salaries and any other expenditure unlike the government schools.
“What is our source of income? Fifty per cent is quite reasonable,” he said.
Source: http://www.expressindia.com/
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