New Delhi: Sixty-three per cent of Indian parents said there has been an increase in their child’s school fees despite classes being held online for more than a year now due to the pandemic, a survey has found. Of these, 33 percent of parents also claim that schools have increased fees by over 20 per cent for the academic year 2021-22.
The survey was conducted by LocalCircles, a community social media platform.
On being asked about the overall fee structure implemented by their children’s schools for the academic year 2021-22, 33 per cent of parents said there has been more than “20% fee increase from 2020-21”, while 23 per cent said there has been “10-20% fee increase”.
Meanwhile, 7 per cent of parents surveyed said there was 0-10% fee increase from 2020-21. Only one percent said schools reduced fees by 10-20 per cent from 2020-21, and 2 per cent said the fee was reduced by more than 20 per cent during the period.
The survey received over 26,000 responses from citizens in 302 districts of India with 48 per cent respondents from metro or tier 1 locations, 28 per cent from tier 2 locations, and 24 per cent from tier 3, tier 4 and rural locations.
The findings of this survey come two months after the Supreme Court said educational institutions must reduce fees as their running costs have come down.
Recently, the Uttar Pradesh Government also directed all schools not to hike fees for the academic session 2021-22.
State govts ineffective in dealing with fee hike issue
To the question of state governments’ response to fee hike, 65 per cent of parents, on average, said their state government has been inactive or ineffective in regulating school fee during the pandemic.
While six per cent said their state government’s actions were “effective”, 23 per cent said government’s actions were “somewhat effective”. Forty-one per cent of parents said it was “ineffective”, and 24 per cent said governments “did not take any action at all”.
The shift to online classes has reduced the expenditure incurred by schools on electricity, maintenance, equipment usage, and other miscellaneous costs.
While parents say it is not fair to charge students for facilities that the school is no longer providing due to the pandemic, schools argue that some of the gains have been offset by an increase in digital cost of education delivery and equipping teachers.
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