Ranchi private school refunds extra fee after pressure from parents
RANCHI: Coming under pressure from the parents, a Ranchi private school on Monday announced to refund the extra fees charged for ‘co-curricular activities’ to the students and to stop it altogether.
The Nirmala Convent High School, which had charged a minimum annual fee of ` 2,000 for co-curricular activities such as karate, yoga and sports from each student, said the students who had paid the same in April for the academic session 2015-16 will be either refunded or the same will be adjusted in monthly tuition fee.
“About 60 students have paid the fee for co-curricular activities… Their money will be refunded. And no such fee will be charged from now,” the school’s secretary Vijay Sharma said, adding that the school will not increase annual fee by more than 5% in a year.
Affiliated to the Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC), the school has about 600 children on its rolls.
The Monday’s announcement is the first such reported incident in Jharkhand where a private school has paid heed to the pleas of parents, the Jharkhand Parents Association (JPA) claimed.
“T he announcement by Nirmala Convent may just be the beginning of schools returning extra fee to parents,” JPA president Ajay Rai said.
The association alleges that a majority of private schools charge fee for miscellaneous reasons such as infrastructure development, re-admission and donation. Many private schools also charge extra fee for uniform, books and even e-learning, parents allege, add- ing some renowned schools here charge miscellaneous annual fee of over Rs.10,000.
Meanwhile, the state human resource development (HRD) department is set to tighten the grip on private schools here. The department has sought details of the fees charged by all private schools in the last three years. “Actions will also be taken against other schools that have increased their fee by more than 15% annually in the last three years,” HRD secretary Aradhna Patnaik said.
“We will soon have t he detailed fee structure of all private schools, and immediate actions will be taken against the schools found charging exorbitant fee,” district superintendent of education, Jayant Mishra said.
In a related development, about 50 parents reportedly visited Guru Nanak Higher Secondary School on Monday demanding omission of readmission fee from the fee structure. The school’’s principal, Manohar Lal, denied any such incident.