First meet over fees ends in fight

A tussle between private schools managements and parents’ associations led to the disruption of the first meeting of the state government-appointed committee on fee regulation in private schools.

The government appointed a committee headed by OU former V-C Prof Tirupathi Rao to suggest measures for bringing in fee regulation at private schools by April 20. There were arguments over how many members should represent each association in the meeting.

When the representatives of managements’ association walked out of the meeting, the officials announced postponement of the meeting to April 4 which was objected by the parents who demanded that the meeting should go on and officials should record the boycott by school managements in the minutes of the meeting.

Officials continued the meeting for sometime and announced to meet again on April 4.

Parents expressed doubts over the intentions of managements in disrupting the meeting and the government in appointing committees at this stage.

“It is clear from both the behavior of managements and the formation of the new committee. Instead of notifying the drafted GO on fee regulation both schools and government are trying to find reason to delay setting up of District Fee Regulatory Committees,” said Ashish Naredi, representative of HSPA.

HSPA demanded the government that the fee hike for 2017-18 be stopped as an interim measure.

Commissioner of school education G. Kishan tabled the draft copy of GO on fee regulation.

“The new G.O does show an earnest attempt by the government to rectify loopholes in earlier GOs on fee regulation in accordance with the judgments of the High Court, Supreme Court,” the HSPA alleged.