Parents in Mumbai protest 100% fee hike by school

Jayprakash Nagar Road in Goregaon (East) was blocked for traffic for more than two hours on Sunday morning after parents from a school in the locality staged a rasta roko to protest against a 100 % fee hike.

Dalvai Education Trust School introduced a mid-term hike in the tuition fees from Rs400 to Rs800 in a PTA meeting held on Sunday. Following the meeting, parents of students studying at the school blocked traffic outside the school complex and gheraoed the trustees.

Sandeep Kamble, one of the agitating parents, said, “The management refused to show us the accounts but told us
that a hike is necessary to meet the school’s expenses. When we asked them to hike the fee by a reasonable amount, they refused.”
Another parent added, “We were told that the management is finding it difficult to pay teachers’ salaries with the current fees. None of the parents was willing to shell out double the existing amount.”

Though the local police were called in, no action was taken against the protesting parents who dispersed only after the management assured them that it would rethink its decision.

“We are not getting grants from the state government. We will think over the proposed amount,” a member of the trust told the parents.

Jayant Jain of the Forum for Fairness in Education said, “The hike is absolutely against the law. The management failed to maintain transparency in the matter. The proposal to hike fees was never discussed in the PTA managing committee. The school management even failed to justify the 100% hike.”