Maha fee regulation remains a tough Act to follow for parents

Amid complaints, the regulation which grants powers to private schools to fix fees and doesn’t give much scope for parents to intervene is the bone of contention: Experts

MUMBAI: Over the past 10 months of the Covid pandemic, parents of children studying in private schools have filed numerous complaints – online and offline – over indiscriminate hiking of fees, with the most recent one on February 16 at Azad Maidan, seeking government Action. However, according to parents and educationists, the major bone of contention is the state’s Fee Regulation Act, which grants enormous powers to private schools to fix fees, leaving hardly any scope for the state to intervene.

The Act

In 2018, the then Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government brought in an amendment to the Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Regulation of Fee) Act, 2011, that allowed schools to hike fees by up to 15% once every two years. It also allowed schools to declare fees for the next five-10 years when a child gets admission in Class 1, thus undermining the role of parents and the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) in fee-related decisions. The Act was called out for its pro-privatisation and promanagement stance and its passage was followed by protests from parents across the state. While the resistance faded away as the government turned a blind eye, the concerns raised then have now become major hurdles in addressing fee-related disputes in schools.

Tough times

A few days after schools in the state were closed owing to Covid-19 and the resultant lockdown in March, classes moved online. With many parents losing jobs, facing salary cuts and financial pressure, requests to grant concessions on fee payments started pouring in. The state released a government resolution (GR) on May 8, 2020, stating schools should stay all fee hikes for the new academic year (2020-2021) and must allow parents to pay fees in instalments. The GR was, however, stayed by the Bombay high court on June 26, in response to a petition by several organisations of private school owners. Petitioners argued the government cannot regulate fees of private schools as per the current rules.

Consequently, while several private schools in the state hiked fees, notwithstanding requests from parents, many others continue to charge activity fees, laboratory fees and miscellaneous expenses, which, parents say, need to be scrapped as children continue to learn from home. Several schools have used provisions under the Act to pressurise parents into paying huge amounts. Non-payment of dues and delayed payments have led to schools removing children from online groups, calling parents incessantly and at times, forcibly asking them to move to another school.

Anubha Sahai, president of the Indiawide Parents’ Association, said the state education department has not solved even one complaint with respect to private schools in the entire pandemic period.

“We have submitted a list of more than 80 schools, but there is no Action. Every time we try to meet officials and ministers, we are told about the pending court cases. The root of the problem is the fee Act which is anti-parent in its very essence. We demand an amendment to it soon,” said Sahai.

The other side

While the current fee Act gives the government very little powers to intervene in fee-related matters of private schools, parents allege the government is turning a blind eye to even the few provisions that exist in the Act. For instance, the Act mandates the Divisional Fee Regulation Committee (DFRC) to handle fee-related disputes. Since the previous committee was dissolved in 2019, the government has failed to make a new one operational.

“Similarly, the Act allows the government to audit the accounts of private schools and mandates them to upload the balance sheets on the website. The government has neither done audits nor uploaded a single document in all these years,” said Prasad Tulaskar, a parent from Dadar. Tulaskar is still awaiting action in a complaint he made against a Dadar school in 2016.

SC Kedia, secretary of the Unaided Schools Forum, which is one of the petitioners in the ongoing case in HC, said a majority of schools have stuck to rules with respect to fees during the pandemic. “There might be a small per cent of private schools who do not follow norms, but there is a mechanism to Act against such schools. Parents can complain against such schools and the government can Act if violations are found,” he added.

Jayant Jain, president of the Forum for Fairness in Education that organised the protest on Wednesday, said, “The government is not serious about the issues of parents. While schools make enormous profits, parents are left in the lurch. Schools are removing students from classes which is a clear violation of their Right to Education, despite which the government is not acting against them.”

Despite several calls and messages, state education minister Varsha Gaikwad remained unavailable for a comment. Officials at the education department denied commenting on the issue stating that “the matter is subjudice”.

Sunita Goenka, chairperson of Goenka and Associates Educational Trust, which runs several schools in the city, said with delays in fee payments, schools also faced several challenges during the pandemic.

“Even though our schools did not hike fees, many parents did not pay during all these months. We also have to pay for a lot of costs, including maintenance and salaries of staff, and ensure that students continue to learn irrespective of their fee payment status. It is only recently that fees have started trickling in,” she added.

Francis Joseph, a city-based educationist and the co-founder of SLN Global Network, said, “We must learn a lot from other countries when it comes to fee fixation. In several Middle-East countries when a school is permitted to break ground, they need to submit a financial plan which aligns to the expenses and revenue, which finally determines the fee they can begin with. We will also need a transparent and corruption-free mechanism which allows both the schools and parents to choose what’s best for them and their children. No one stakeholder should pressure the other based on assumptions and perception.”