Don't hike fees exorbitantly, Karnataka schools' body tells managements

The Karnataka Private School Managements, Teaching and Non Teaching Staff Co-Ordination Committee (KPMTCC) has issued an advisory to all member schools not to increase the fee for the 2021-22 academic year, a move which will bring a huge relief to parents if complied by managements.

As the order issued by state government cutting 30% of the tuition fees during 2020-21 does not apply for coming academic year, and also following the complaints about some of the private schools increasing the fees exorbitantly, KPMTCC made an appeal to all member schools not to increase the fees.

The appeal was made after a meeting on Monday where representatives of CBSE, ICSE, IB, state board, KUSMA and minority institutions were present.

Addressing the media after the meeting, D Shashi Kumar, Convener of the Committee said, “We discussed the fee issue in the meeting and decided not to increase the fees. We appealed to schools across the state, irrespective of the board of affiliation, not to increase the fees, considering the Covid-19 crisis.”

The Committee members requested school managements to act on humanitarian grounds.

“If there are parents in a financial crisis having lost jobs or loss in business, such individual cases can be considered for fee discounts or waiver,” said Nooraine Fazal, co-founder and CEO of Inventure Academy.

The committee decided to file complaint against schools which charge exorbitant fees.

“We advise schools to fix the fees looking at their expenses and also on humanitarian grounds. If any school increases exorbitantly 20-25%, we from the committee will file complaint against such schools,” Shashi Kumar said.

According to the committee members, there are several components which are not utilised due to lack of offline classes and schools must not include those in the fee structure.

They have requested the parents to raise their voice against such schools and not to generalise all schools.

“There are parents who are generalising the schools and misleading parents. If in case of a fee hike, the fight should only be against that school. If any parent tries to generalise and influence parents not to pay fees, we will be file a police complaint against such parents and their association,” the members said.