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NAGPUR: Bounced cheques from parents, fee under Right to Education (RTE) unpaid for four years, pressure from local politicians to give free/discounted admission and increased vigilantism by parents/activists about fee hikes is adding to their financial woes, allege private school associations.

Rajendra Dayma, vice president of Independent English Schools Association ( IESA ) said, “Schools get painted as villains and unfortunately nobody speaks up for us. Fee hike is inevitable because staff salaries are hiked, maintenance costs go up, utilities too keep creeping upwards and our revenue actually keeps going down.” He added that 25% seats (for non-minority schools) are already reserved under RTE and government reimbursement for it is just 1/3rd of normal fee structure.

A school principal from city, who is a family member of the trustees said, “To illustrate the point, let’s say we require Rs100 to meet expenses and plan to recover entire amount from fee. Due to RTE we are already falling short by 25%, so only Rs75 will be coming in. On average Rs2 are forfeited because the parent refuses to pay using some influence or the other, that leaves Rs73 as our revenue. Now how do we cover the deficit of Rs27? Someone has to pay for this, but we talk of hike and parents bay for our blood.”

Dayma said, “Nobody understands, nor wants to understand, the administrative problems schools face. The government has not cleared our RTE fee bills for years. Now in this we have many parents who don’t pay any fee, or pay partial fee, because of recommendations from local politicians etc. Then there are a small number of parents who just stop paying but we can’t take any action because of government rules.”

A city based school trustee told TOI that their entire budget goes for a toss because of problems related to fee collection. “We had 45 cheques from parents bouncing just in the last two weeks and it is not uncommon,” the trustee said. Another city school’s principal said, “There are parents who delay paying the fee right till the year-end citing some reason or other. Even at the end of the year it’s not easy to get fee from them. I have a parent who hasn’t paid for two years and later brought a letter from a politician seeking reprieve.”

SC Kedia, secretary of Unaided Schools Forum (USF) said, “Fee hikes are not for profit but just to meet expenses. There are various facilities that schools provide and the amount collected is related to that. I am currently in Gujarat meeting with some schools and hopefully next month will be touring Nagpur for the same. We want to make everyone aware that schools care about kids as much as parents, and no decision is taken arbitrarily.” USF is planning to a seminar and a media interaction to present their side of the story with proper facts and figures.

