Parents relieved after fee hike waiver order

TNN | Apr 29, 2020, 07:02 IST

Noida: To the relief of parents, Uttar Pradesh ordered Monday that no private school in the state, would increase fee for the current academic session in view of the lockdown. This applies to academic institutions affiliated to UP board, CBSE, ICSE, as well as, International Baccalaureate (IB) and International General Certificate Secondary education (IGCSE).
“Schools may have processed their fee slab for April-June earlier in the year; now if they have issued bills, they may have to revise them and if people have paid up, they will have to be refunded in coming months,” Neeraj Pandey, district inspector of schools, Noida told TOI.
Noida and Ghaziabad together have 400 CBSE-affiliated schools. There are less than 50 ICSE schools in both districts and around 3,000 UP board schools.
While schools have started online classes for the student to avoid a disruption in their academic curriculum, parents have been stating that fees be charged only from the time the schools become fully operational, and a complaint was also forwarded to the government in this regard.
However, so far, the state had only allowed two relaxations — that they can pay fees monthly instead of the full quarterly fee for the period of April-June, and that schools should waive transport fee.
“The fact that the government has rolled back the fee hike is good news, but we have been demanding a waiver of the first quarter fee. While children are attending online classes, the school is not operating on full curriculum,” said Yatendra Kasana, president, All Noida School Parents’ Association.