‘No fee’ campaign will render many jobless, USWAN to min, dist collector

Nagpur: A group of CBSE schools, under the banner of Unaided Schools Welfare Association Nagpur (USWAN) , met home minister Anil Deshmukh and district collector Ravindra Thakare on Friday about the ongoing controversy over fee collection. Schools say the “no fee” campaign will straight away result in their economic collapse and leave massive numbers of teachers and other staff unemployed.
The immediate trigger for schools to take a stand seems to be a circular issued on June 3 by the local education department. It was a reiteration of the state government GR of May 8 in which schools were asked not to force parents to pay, but at the same time did not ban fee collection either.
In its letter, USWAN says some parents along with vested interests are promoting the “No School No Fee” campaign. The letter urged the collector to not succumb to “undue demands from such organizations for non-payment of fee to schools which will create unemployment to the core and create an environment of doubt among the teaching fraternity”.
The letter goes on to urge the education department from being “a party to unwanted elements who wish to defame and disturb”.
Schools say they are burdened with fixed costs like salaries, annual payments to contractors, EMIs etc which have not been “waived off”. USWAN says if the lockdown continues with the “no fee” clause then schools also have to take some drastic steps. “We have no other way of saying No Fee, No School and No Online class,” said schools in their letter. This, USWAN pointed out, will result in unemployment rising sharply in their field.
In the last one month, the local education department has seen a steady stream of separate parents’ groups and social activists approach them with petitions for waiving off fees or reducing it by 50%. Local education officers have maintained their stand, that their role is of policy implementation and that changes can only by done at Mantralaya level.