‘ Return fee if admission is withdrawn’

A LARGE NUMBER OF PARENTS HAD COMPLAINED TO THE DIRECTORATE OF EDUCATION THAT THEY WERE FACING PROBLEMS IN GETTING THEIR MONEY BACK

NEW DELHI: The Directorate of Education (DoE) has instructed private schools in the city to refund fee taken at the time of admission in case a child’s admission is withdrawn.

Citing orders passed by it in the past, the directorate officials said in case parents do not submit the required documents on time or the documents submitted turn out to be incorrect, the entire fee, except the registration fee, will be refunded.

In case the parents withdraw admission, the school is allowed to retain the admission fee and the tuition fee for a month’s duration. The remaining amount has to be refunded within 15 days.

Parents in Delhi and NCR pay between `60,000 and `1.5 lakh at the time of admission.

A large number of parents had complained to the DoE that they were facing problems getting their money back from schools in case they withdrew the child’s admission or the child’s admission was cancelled due to lack of documents. Most of those who are facing this problem have got their children admitted in nursery during the past few months.

NGOs working in the field of education had also raised the same issue a few weeks ago.

After a pitched battle with the DoE in the Delhi High Court, private schools in the city were given the freedom to set their own nursery admission criteria within a broad set of guidelines. This, however, did not give schools the freedom to alter the rules of fee refund.

The large number of complaints, however, means that schools have been flouting the fee refund rules more often than not.

The order comes on the heels of the Aam Aadmi Party promising to curb malpractices by private schools in the run-up to the Delhi assembly polls. NEW DELHI: The body of a 55-yearold businessman was found at his office in northwest Delhi’s Maurya Enclave on Wednesday afternoon.

Initial probe suggests the businessman was strangled by some people who ransacked his office. The victim has been identified as Mukesh Grover, a resident of Shalimar Bagh. Grover worked as a commission agent and he supplied pepper at the Khari Baoli market in north Delhi. Police said they suspected the involvement of Grover’s employee who has been missing since the crime came to light in the afternoon. Grover’s mobile phone, some cash and valuables are also missing.

HTC