Hyderabad schools flout `no fee hike’ rule with impunity, allege parents

Hyderabad: Hyderabad Schools Parents Association (HSPA) has alleged that most of the educational institutions are violating the Telangana government’s 'no fee hike rule'.

On April 24, 2020, Telangana government issued GO instructing schools not to hike fees this academic year given the nationwide lockdown.

Some private schools have communicated to students that they will charge only tuition fees. But, there are still schools that have simply refused to comply with government orders.

Parents said some schools are charging activity fees, annual fees, food fees, etc under the garb of the tuition fee.

Seema Agarwal, Member, Hyderabad School Parents Association (HSPA) said some schools are simply cheating the parents by dividing the whole fee amount into monthly installments.

Few parents have written to schools for clarification/breakup of the manipulated term fee/monthly installment. However, the schools didn’t bother to respond until now.

“We just wanted to bring to the attention of Telangana School Education department that most of the schools in the state are violating the recently issued GO MS 46. We have received complaints from the parents whose kids studying at Chirec School and Epistemo Global School. During the inquiry, we found Chirec International School has manipulated fees by calling it the promotion to next class fees. Similarly, Epistemo Global has clubbed fee under various heads and named it as Tuition Fees (Term1),” she said.

In their email to parents, a school said in compliance with the Government Order, they will be collecting monthly fees for tuition only at 2019-20 levels of the promoted class. “Optional fees, e.g., lunch and transport will be charged only when our campuses re-open and the children can return to school physically,” it said.

Not satisfied, one of the parents said schools are playing with words. “When I have calculated and compared the fee structure, we observed an increase of 18 percent to 28 percent for the academic year 2020-21,” he said.

K Venkat Sainath, Member, Hyderabad School Public Association said none of the schools seems to be taking the government order seriously. “Tuition fees, activity fees, lab fees, and fancy heads now come under a common name --tuition fee. No school has separated the tuition fee as per the GO. Parents fear that if they do not pay the fees, schools may cancel the admissions of their kids,” he said.