Parents complain against Goregaon school for charging capitation fee

The parents of children studying at a Goregaon school have complained that the management has hiked the tuition fee and is collecting capitation fees of Rs2,200 to Rs3,500 which is against the law.

The children are from the English section of the Goregaon Education Society School, which has about 800 students in the primary and secondary sections. The school has a Gujarati section that receives government aid, but the English section is unaided.

According to the complaint lodged by the parents with the Goregaon police on Friday, the school had announced an arbitrary 30 per cent hike in the tuition fee for the new academic year 2014-15.

“Besides the tuition fee, the school is charging an extra Rs2,200 from primary students and Rs3,500 from the secondary students under various heads like asset fee, activity fee, extra sports fee and stationery fee and this is illegal,” said one of the parents who have taken up the matter with the help of a social activist.

The activist, Avisha Kulkarni, said, “Any school which collects money under frivolous heads like asset, activity or extra sport violates the rules.” School principal Amrita Verma did not respond to phone calls.

Another parent explained that the monthly tuition fee was hiked from Rs1,250 to Rs1,550 for the primary section and Rs1,600 to Rs2,050 for the secondary section with the sanction of the parents teachers association (PTA).

“The PTA is not elected as is necessary under the rules. Many of the parents refused to pay the increased fee and sent a draft as per the old amount, by post. But the school sent the drafts back. It will not give the children the books for the new year,” said a parent.

Arun Jadhav, senior police inspector, said a case had been registered against the trustees and the school principal under relevant sections of the Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Prohibition of Capitation Fee) Act, 1987.