Proposals on school fee regulation full of flaws: Parents body

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad School Parents Association (HSPA) stated that new proposals of the State government on fee regulation were full of loopholes.

Reacting to the new proposals, Venkata Sainath of HSPA said that the new proposals on school fee regulation without providing a mechanism to arrive at a base fee for each category of school was nothing but "legitimising the profiteering and privatisation of school education."

"We demand categorisation of schools based on their infrastructure and faculty and fixing a cap on maximum per year based on the category of school," he said.

Earlier, the Group of Ministers committee recommended that the school-level fee committee be the entity competent for regulation of fee structure in private unaided schools.

The school-level fee committee will have members from management, principal, teachers and parents for a period of one year.

As per the recommendations, the school management has to submit the detailed audited accounts and proposed fee structure detailing the components and basis for the proposed fee structure at least three months before the commencement of the new academic year before the school-level committee for its approval.

There are two kinds of categories of fee it has recommended. Firstly, the mandatory fee, includes admission fee and tuition fee

Secondly, the optional fee. It includes transport, boarding and dining facilities, excursion and any other fee which is not part of the curricular activities.

It mandates that the fee should be collected through cashless digital payments only. Annual hike of not more than 10 per cent is allowed than the fee collected in the previous year.

In case the school-level committee fails to fix the fee, then the State-level fee regulatory committee comprising a retired High Court judge as its chairman, Commissioner and Director of School Education, and a person of eminence and repute in the field of education to be nominated by the government will decide the fee.