In an attempt to regulate fee structure in private schools, the state government has linked fee structure with Consumer Price Index and it would be applicable for schools charging an annual fee of Rs 20,000 and above. A decision in this regard was taken at a cabinet meeting in Lucknow on Tuesday.
The cabinet also decided to bring `Self-Finance Private School (Fee structure) Ordinance, 2018’ which would be applicable in all private schools affiliated with any Board including ICSE, ISC, CBSE and even minority institutions.
The Ordinance specifies that this Act will be applicable on schools charging Rs 20,000 or more as annual fee. First time violators would be fined Rs 1 lakh, for a second violation the penalty would be Rs 5 lakh and if rules were violated for a third time, the recognition of the school will be cancelled. Deputy Chief Minister Dr Dinesh Sharma said that the state government has decided to link fee structure of schools with Consumer Price Index (CPI) and for academic year 2018-19 the base year would be CPI of 2015-16.
“This will bring in transparency and schools will not be able to raise fee at per their volition. We believe that the annual hike would be anything between 7-8 per cent,” Dr Sharma said.
The Yogi government had taken a decision to put a check on fees structure on January 18, 2018, following which people were asked to give their suggestions. The government received 164 suggestions and objections. “After carefully going through we decided to frame this ordinance,” he said.
The Ordinance has a clause where an Appellate Authority will be set up at the Division level under Chairmanship of Divisional Commissioner. Representatives of parents and schools will also be part of this. Complaints about fee could be lodged there and the Authority would redress them in a time-bound manner.
“A similar Appellate Authority will be set up at the state-level which will look into the problems at the state level,” the Deputy CM said.
Sharma said that schools need to upload the fee structure starting from Class I to class XII on their official website and they should tak fee on a quarterly or half-yearly basis only. Schols cannot force parents to purchase dress, books or stationery from designated stores.
“All commercial activities in schools will be treated as their income. This will help in keeping schools afloat and allow them to pay handsome salaries to teachers,” the minister said.
In another decision, the government has decided to set up institutes at nine agro-zones of the state as per advice of International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad. These institutes would educate farmers about the character of soil of that region and type of crop that they should grow. “This information will help the farmers to grow new variety of crops and help them in doubling their income,” he said.
The government also suggested changes in Assistant Engineer Joint Examination Rule, 2014. Earlier the written marks for this examination was 750 while 250 was for interview. Now, the interview will be of 100 marks and written marks will remain the same.