Opening Pandora’s box while ‘capping’ fee

Knowingly or unwittingly, the Telangana government is fuelling a new controversy by opening Pandora’s box that may reach its crescendo prior to the commencement of the next academic year. It has often been noted that any measure taken to ‘boost’ the education sector has evoked mixed responses, and the latest one, a well-intended measure, is bound to be yet another controversy. The state’s School Education Department is proposing a cap of up to eight per cent on tuition fee hikes biennially for private and corporate schools in Hyderabad.

The endeavour is ostensibly aimed at curbing the frequent steep increases that many institutions are indulging in. It also makes it clear that schools needing to raise fees beyond the limit would require government approval. Ironically, this is in stark contrast to the recommendations made earlier by the Telangana Education Commission, which recommended a 10-15 per cent hike once in three years. Not surprisingly, the proposal is inching towards a flashpoint and pits the government-private institutions and parents against one another. The first opposition has come from the Telangana Recognised Schools Management Association, which insists that annual school fees must be revised every year and be in tune with the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a practice in vogue in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Bihar, Punjab and Haryana.

Although the government is yet to take a call on the proposal and might do so in the next Cabinet meeting, the fact is that while private institutions are rejecting the ‘unacceptable’ revision, the equally powerful Hyderabad Schools Parents Association has slammed the proposal. They have raised a very valid point to substantiate their argument --there is nothing whatsoever about the base fee structure. Indeed, on a closer look one finds that this is a major lacuna, which many private and corporate institutions can smartly twist to their advantage.

Wiser counsel would have been on first fixing a uniform base price, in the absence of which, even if private institutions eventually toe the line amid warnings of losing their licences, they can still make a killing given that the fee structure is as per their whims and fancies. Interestingly, in their first reaction to the proposal, the budget private schools have sought a five per cent annual revision without the need for any nod from the Fee Regulation and Monitoring Commission, whose helplessness is being questioned by the parents’ body. These adamant stances that run parallel to one another are bound to catch the government on a sticky wicket, a dicey situation that may require a compromise whereupon both Associations can perhaps have a change of heart, which seems unlikely at this point.

One must remember that to help resolve the issue amicably, the Telangana Education Commission had called for constituting an exclusive Telangana Private Unaided Schools Fee Regulatory Commission headed by a former Supreme Court or High Court judge with academicians, chartered accountants, and school management as its members. Parents’ clamour for streamlining the fee structure across all categories of schools is not unfounded. With hardly any punishable checks and deterrents,

private institutions continue to charge a bomb and increase them every year with equally preposterous percentages that could even be around 5o-60 over the fees of the academic year gone by. The intention of the government is to bring uniformity to school fees, including in all urban centres in the state. However, one wonders if this can come into effect in the coming academic year. One has surely not heard the last of this proposal.