Parents protest ‘fee hike’, school says slips just showing arrears

Parents of students studying at Hansraj Model School in Punjabi Bagh alleged on Saturday that the tuition fees had been hiked by over 24%, a claim denied by school officials.

Around parents said the charges were hiked in the second quarter of the session. They said the tuition fees for a first grade child went up from Rs 11,130 in the April-June quarter to Rs 13,290 in the July-September quarter.

Transportation fees and IT fees were also hiked by up to 40%, the parents said.

“In the last five years, the fee has almost doubled from Rs 11,000 to Rs 22,000. Every year, they hike it by around 10%, but this year they hiked the total fees by over 24% mid-session,” said a parent, wishing anonymity.

Neeraj Dhameeja, father of a 10th grader at the school, said that in 2009, the then principal had assured parents that fees would be hiked by not more than 10% every year.

The school principal, however, said the fee had been hiked only by a permissible 10%.

The increased fee in the second quarter was because of arrears of the first quarter (April-June), he said, adding parents had not paid the hiked fees in the first quarter.

“Parents are just confused. If you look at the monthly breakup of the fees for the quarter, the tuition fee has only been hiked by almost 10%. In fact our fees have not been hiked for the past three years... Our name is not in the Anil Dev Committee list (which looked at schools that hiked fees indiscriminately), which should tell you that we do not do things like this,” said Heemal H Bhat, principal of the school.

Parents countered. “They have now just labelled it under an arrear head to try and show that the hike had happened in April itself. If it was hiked in April , then why did the fee slips issued by the school not mention it in April?” asked a parent.

The parents said they had already approached the chief minister and the deputy chief minister and met by area MLA, Girish Soni on Saturday.