Parents up in arms against school fee hike

With several schools hiking their fees for the upcoming academic year, parents from various parts of the city have come together to fight the school managements after individual attempts at doing so failed. Parents of students of more than eight prominent schools in the city recently approached Vinod Tawade, Maharashtra Education Minister, to voice their concerns. They have the support of the Forum for Fairness in Education (FFE), a city based NGO, and are planning to collectively protest soon.

At a Monday meeting that took place at FFE's Dadar office, parents raised several issues with respect to fee hikes, additional charges for stationery, books, activities charged by the school every year, admission fees charged more than once, and several other charges levied by private schools from time to time which are not in keeping with the norms laid by the state government's fee regulation Act, 2011.

"Schools have become a profit-making business today. Before the academic year starts, schools have started hiking their fees by a huge margin without actually consulting parents from time to time. When parents try to oppose these hikes, their children are threatened by using various means," Jayant Jain, President, Forum for Fairness in Education said. "Some schools have also started charging parents under heads like miscellaneous charges and re-admission charges without actually getting these heads approved in the Parents Teachers Association (PTA),"

Parents are also considering litigation if there is no response from the schools.