Nagpur: Parents of students of Centre Point School’s Dabha branch protested against the management’s decision of not allowing their wards to appear in Std X preliminary examinations on Friday.
According to the parents, their wards were barred from entering the classrooms where the papers were underway on the pretext that they didn’t pay fees for 2020-21 academic session. They were told that until the fee was deposited, they wouldn’t be allowed to appear in any of the exams.
The aggrieved parents later rushed to collector Ravindra Thakare with their grievances and requested him to take action against the school for harassing the students.
“The school is illegally charging us for library, gymkhana and extra-curricular activities though schools weren’t opened till January first week. In fact, most of us have paid fees till November and only December’s fee is to be paid before January 15. Even after that, fees can be deposited with a fine. Still, the management illegally barred our children from appearing in exams,” N Girish Raju told TOI.
Another parent Palak Mahajan said that parents were ready to pay the fees, but only for tuition and term charges and not for the library, gym and other things which weren’t used by the children. “At least on humanitarian grounds, the school should reduce the fee and give some time to pay it, as parents too are facing hard times due to Covid-19 pandemic.”
“I had told the school authorities that once the bank opens, I will pay the remaining fees, but they weren’t willing to listen,” he said.
Defending the move, CPS directors Rajsingh and Radhika Rajwade said a large number of parents have not paid fees since May-June and now the school is facing the pinch. “The fee, which we charge, including the library and gymkhana, is fixed by the government as per Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Regulation of Fee) Act, 2011. On other hand, we haven’t reduced salaries of any of our 500 teachers and non-teaching staffers.”
Another parent said the education department had issued a letter to the CPS through officer Chintaman Vanjari on Thursday that schools can’t prohibit students from appearing in any exams for non-payment of fees. “Still the management acted in a way which has caused trauma and harassment to the children and parents,” said the parent.
Replying to the charge, the Rajwades said school is also incurring a lot of expenditure due to the pandemic. “We’ve installed sanitisers, other equipment and also need to regularly sanitize the premises. We have also installed online facilities like laptops and broadband connections for online teaching. We haven’t scaled down our security and are paying full bills of utilities like power, water and other taxes,” they said.