Education falls under State list. Constitution allows private individuals and organizations to open schools for providing education to the students. The State Education Department has laid down some rules and fixed criterion to grant recognition to private schools. At the same time, the Department has also the scheme of grant-in-aid to private schools. It means that schools fulfilling the conditions laid down by the Education Department are entitled to receive some grant from the State which is meant by way of support to the spread of education. But there are other private schools that do not at all receive any form of grant from the Government and are run on donations made by philanthropists and the fees they charge from the students. There is no hard and fast rule for fixing the amount of fee. It varies from school to school and institution to institution. In addition to monthly tuition fee, many schools charge admission fee, capitation fee and other charges under other heads also. Private schools have seldom adhered to the fee structure suggested by the Education Department.
Urge for education has spread among the people and rightly so. Government schools cannot cope with the huge number of students seeking admission year after year. Therefore there is great rush of admission in private schools. More often than not these private institutions exploit the situation to garner huge benefits of income by way of fees obtained from the parents of the students they admit. Besides monthly tuition fee and bus fee, there are other heads under which the students are required to make payments like capitation fee, admission fee, charity etc. This had become an issue for the parents especially for those who had not the financial capacity to pay exorbitant fee in one form or the other.
Fortunately the Supreme Court has come to the rescue of parents and their kids by delivering a landmark judgment in which it has said that imparting of education is a charitable act and the money thus earned by the institutions is to be used only for the improvement of facilities for the students and not for personal gains. This judgment has been hailed by the nation and parents have heaved a sigh of relief. In this background the Chairman for the Committee for Fixation of Fee Structure of Private Educational Institutions in the State has asked the private schools of the State to follow the Supreme Court guidelines in connection with fee structure and other matters. The Chairman has given fifteen days time to private schools to get their fees structure approved by the Committee as per the guidelines of the Supreme Court. The guidelines do not permit the schools and institutions to hike the fee out of their sweet will. The private schools have been asked to submit the details of the infrastructure of the school and facilities they offer to the students. They have been asked to submit the fee details charged from the students, like amount charged at the stage of admission, fee per month of each class and bus charges. As per the guidelines, the schools have to justify their fee structure as per their infrastructure. They have also been asked to submit the details regarding the qualification of the teachers and salaries that are paid to them. They have been asked to disclose the financial sources, property owned by school and the buses owned or leased by the school.
There are about 5000 private schools in the State and all of these will have to comply with the guidelines of the Supreme Court and respond to the directive of the Chairman of the Fixation of Fees Structure Committee. It is a revolutionary step and the Chairman of the Committee deserves appreciation for taking the step that will bring relief to thousands of families who are hard pressed to pay exorbitant fees for their wards. We hope that Chairman for the Committee for Fixation of Fee Structure of Private Educational Institutions will not rest with just issuing the instructions to the schools to get their fee structure registered within 15 days but will also take necessary legal action against the defaulting schools and thus make history of cleansing education in the State of self-seekers amassing wealth in the name of private educational institutions. This rule should become applicable to higher educational institutions also that are run by private individuals or organizations.
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