Hyderabad: Pvt schools ruthless in fee collection

Koti: It is not even a fortnight that the State government allowed the physical reopening of the schools for Class IX and X students that the private school managements' ruthless pursuit of fee collection in the post-pandemic times has claimed its first victim.

Yeshaswini, a Class X student ended her life by hanging fearing that she might not be allowed to give examinations on account of nonpayment of school fee.

It may be mentioned here that parents of the school children studying in private schools have been protesting for the last nine months against the school managements demanding fees for the whole academic year despite the schools were shut down for straight four to five months on account of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Further, the Hyderabad School Parents Association (HSPA), Parents Association of India (PAI) and individual parents' associations' of different school have been staging protests before the schools.

This had led the State government to issue Government Order 46, directing the private schools to collect only tuition fee on monthly basis due to the financial constraints on account of the job loss, work loss, business loss and salary cuts imposed by several organizations citing the COVID-19.

However, the HSPA said that the schools have been manipulating to circumvent the GO.46 by clubbing different fees into tuition fee and charging them as usual for the entire academic year.

The school managements are accused of diluting the protests by roping in police assistance, who in turn warned the protesters of taking stringent action citing COVID-19 regulations.

The GO.46 remained in totters as many schools did not bother to implement. On the other hand, the physical reopening of the schools has given a chance to the private school managements to target children to make calls to their parents for clearing of dues.

When asked an SGT in a private school located in Kothapet told The Hans India, "It is not uncommon for the school managements to deploy teachers to call the parents and ask them to clear the fees." Adding, parents feel the pressure as it was the teachers who interact with their children and teach them on a day-to-day basis in the classroom.

The HSPA charged the State government that despite the issue has been brought to the notice of every authority, from DEO to the Commissioner of School Education, State Education Minister Sabita Indra Reddy and sent emails to Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao with pleas of their intervention explaining how the parents found themselves in dire straits pushed into precarious financial situation.

However, no action has come forth so far. This has further emboldened the private managements to continue to mount pressure on the parents to pay the fee for the entire academic year.

Meanwhile, some conscious stricken officials in the education department expressed shock over the suicide of Yesaswini and prayed that it would not turn into another intermediate results fiasco that had tarred the image of the education department and the State government.