After complaints, school served notice for fee hike proposal

Noida: The district fee regulation committee (DFRC) of Gautam Budh Nagar has issued a notice to Billabong High School, asking the management to explain the rationale behind hiking fees for the upcoming academic session. Similar notices to three more schools in Noida are to be issued soon, the district inspector of schools (DIOS) said.
Over 90 parents of Billabong High School had recently submitted a complaint to DFRC, under the banner of All Noida School Parents’ Association (ANSPA), claiming that they had been given an estimate by the school for the upcoming academic session, which was 21.5% more than the fee charged in 2018-19.

“We examined the compliant by the parents and issued a show-cause notice to the school. We have also received complaints from parents of Cambridge School, Ryan International and Khaitan School and will be asking for explanation from them in the coming days,” DIOS PK Upadhayay said.

The school had, however, explained to the parents that the fee was increased on the basis of calculations done as per the Uttar Pradesh Fee Regulation Act (2018).

“Parents of Cambridge School have shared the slip of proposed fee for the academic session of 2019-20. The fee asked for by the school for the next session includes a component for admission fee,” said K Arunachalam, general secretary of ANSPA.

“How come schools are issuing such bills even when the Uttar Pradesh Self-Financed Independent Schools (Fee Regulation) Act is in place for the past one year? We are shocked to see school openly violating the act,” he added. ANSPA said it also wanted to draw the attention of the government to this issue that “simply introducing an act is of no use unless enforcement devices are put in place”.

“While the act is a noble one, no school is implementing it willingly. The entire implementation is now dependent on parents’ complaints and many parents are shy of coming forward with complaints because of fear of retaliation from the schools. Parents of only eight schools of Noida have come forward till date,” Arunachalam said.