Cut fees by 20-25%, Association tells private schools

BENGALURU: The Associated Management of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka has advised its members to strictly follow Covid SOPs issued by the government, which include not charging parents the full year fee in one go.Instead, the association asked schools to reduce the overall fees and has suggested fees for special development, term fees, extra curricular activities and computer usage fees.

The association has suggested that special development fees can be waived if the overall annual fee is less than Rs 25,000. Term fees should be 10% of the whole tuition fee, and can be considered by schools whose annual fee is less than Rs 15,000. Fee for extra curricular activities, if any, for activities such as sports, cultural coaching, swimming, horse riding, etc, could also be waived, the association advised members.

Schools should consider lowering minimum charges for computer usage by 30% while transportation maintenance apart from the running costs can be considered yearly overall expenditure and be divided among students, the association said.If the overall annual fees is more than Rs 25,000, the fee could be reduced by 20-25% in the best interest of the students and parents during the COVID situation, it added.

This comes after the Karnataka Private Unaided Schools Parents Association’s coordination committee had written to Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Suresh Kumar on January 1, requesting that only 25% of the tuition fee be collected for the year 2020-21, commensurate with actual salary expenditure.

Parents also demanded the National Commission on the Protection of Child Rights Model Framework be followed for fee regulation of unaided private schools. They also demanded the appointment of a fee fixation committee such as the one in Chennai to approve or fix fees in private unaided schools from the academic years 2021-22 onwards.