State is in cahoots with school managements: Jayant Jain

More than a year since some parents took private schools to court for charging exorbitant fees, the matter is still unresolved. In fact, it has only escalated tensions between the two conflicting parties, even as the government continues to play an indifferent role in the background. Leading the dissenting voices, Jayant Jain, president of Forum for Fairness in Education and All India Federation of Parent Teacher Association (AIFPTA) has been on the forefront of the battle. With the government once again missing the deadline for the third time on the fee hike issue on May 8, Jain spoke to DNA on the next step planned in the battle.

With increasing operational costs and implementation of the sixth pay commission, why do you think private unaided schools are wrong in increasing fees?
Our main objection to the fee hike is that private schools registered as charitable trusts are involved in profiteering. Schools are also granted exemptions under the Income Tax Act for being charitable trusts. Furthermore, they get land from the government at a subsidised cost. If profiteering is the objective, they should be treated like any other commercial venture. Schools can only recover operational and maintenance costs in the tuition fee, but in reality, they are collecting capital expenditure such as building fees, infrastructure fee, development fee, etc.  

Why should the government interfere in matters of private unaided schools? If your demand is met and a regulatory body set up, how will it help resolve the conflict?   
Firstly, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of private unaided schools in the city. With no supervision, most of them flout norms and prescribe their own fee structure and rules. Also, there is also no transparency and every private school has its own fee structure. Once a regulatory body is set up, there will be a uniform fee structure.

The government has once again missed the deadline for filing a report on its observations on the fee hike issue. With the next academic season starting from June, what are the challenges faced by parents to win the face-off?
With more than 60% of private schools owned by politicians, it is obvious that the state government is in cahoots with school managements. They are deliberately delaying the matter in court. To counter this, we will once again come out on to the streets and pressurise the government to regulate private unaided schools. The last time we organised a protest, we managed to amass more than two lakh signatures against the Bansal Committee Report. We will approach the court again if the government dithers. If the Delhi and Tamil Nadu governments can set up regulatory bodies to monitor the fee structure of private schools, why can’t Maharashtra do the same?   

Recently, parents’ bodies across the country united under a single umbrella and formed local chapters of parent-teacher organisations. A joint PIL was to be filed by them in the Supreme Court. How far have you progressed on this?
Currently, we are recruiting more parents into the organisation across the country. We will soon be opening local chapters at Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kanpur, Delhi, etc. We have also made contact with parent organisations from tier 2 cities such as Secunderabad, Faridabad, etc. Once we get everyone under one umbrella, we will start preparing the PIL. We will do this before July.