AHMEDABAD: In a major breather to parents, the
Supreme Court of India on Wednesday ruled that charges for non-academic activities cannot be thrust upon students by private schools. The
court ordered the
Gujarat government to list activities undertaken by private schools for which payment is optional for students.
The apex court said that fees towards transportation, sports and other activities that do not form part of students’ studies are strictly optional and cannot be a mandatory part of the fee package.
The court observations came during a hearing of the dispute between the Federation of Self Financed Schools and the Gujarat government over the state’s new law, the Gujarat Self Financed Schools (Regulation of Fees) Act, 2017 which was enacted last year ahead of the state assembly polls. Its stated aim is to regulate exorbitant fee charged by private schools and thus reduce the financial burden on parents.
Private schools challenged the constitutional validity of Gujarat’s fee regulation law in the SC. At an April hearing of this case, the court told the state government not to question the decisions of schools to offer non-curricular activities to improve education standards, effectively pushing them out of the ambit of the fee structure to be fixed by the fee regulatory committee (FRC).
As this discussion was went forward, the state government on Tuesday insisted that private schools can’t force students to pay for activities that are strictly not related to education or the syllabus. The apex court accepted this submission, said government pleader Manisha Shah.
Besides, the apex court has also directed 1,863 private schools to submit their proposals for regulated fees to FRCs in a week. Of more than 15,700 private schools in the state, 1,863 schools have not yet approached the authorities to finalize their fee structures, for various reasons.
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