’Desperate times call for desperate measures’

Parents from the city say erratic fee hikes in school affect family incomes, so they have to resort to aggressive methods such as hunger strikes to make their demands heard

'Desperate times call for desperate measures'

Parents from the city say erratic fee hikes in school affect family incomes, so they have to resort to aggressive methods such as hunger strikes to make their demands heard

MiD DAY team spoke to representatives of parents from the city at the state-wide hunger strike in Mumbai's Azad Maidan against fee hike,u00a0 namely Sandeep Chavan, Pune Representative of Forum for Fairness in Education, Mateen Mujawar, president of Shikshan Hak Manch, Ravindra Satav, a participant in the hunger strike and Anjali Patil, the lady who broke into the President's convoy to submit a charter of demands on fee hikes. MiD DAY discussed issues such as admissions procedures, quality of teaching and fee hikes.

Resolute: Sandeep Chavan, Ravindra Satav and Matin Mujawar talk to
MiD DAY reporters Pic/Jignesh Mistry

The Right to Education Act prohibits pre-admission screening including interviews, written tests. How much of the law is actually implemented?
Ravindra: Parents have to speak in English, if they want to ensure admission for their children in English medium schools. Some parents have passed out from Marathi medium schools and cannot speak English fluently. Thus their children will not get English medium education. As parents want to get their child admitted to a particular school, they do not raise their voice during admission procedures. Sandeep: Not only students, even parents have to sit through interviews for admission. Mateen: Schools ask for salary of parents which is not required.

The law prohibits donations in the form of development fund or admission fees at the time of admissions. But does that actually happen?
Sandeep: Right from admission fees which is anything between Rs 25,000 to a lakh rupees to hefty prices of admission forms, and development or building maintenance fund, everything is banned under the Capitation Fee Act, 1987. But zero per cent of the rules are followed. Officials turn a blind eye even after parent complain repeatedly which they stand to lose if they protest.

Recently there was a hunger strike in Mumbai after which the new School Fee Regulation Act was introduced in Assembly. Are you happy with it?
Mateen: The act is supposed to bring control over fee hikes in private unaided schools that are currently out of the ambit of existing law. There is no mention of the pre-primary schools in the draft of the new law, a section where most amount of profiteering takes place and also this is the entry point for school admissions.
Sandeep: According to the draft, the proposal is to be submitted before the PTA and if the parents object, it will be submitted before a local district committee. However, this committee has no representative from NGOs or parents but instead outsiders like retired judges, government officials, among others, which is extremely unfair as they do not understand our issues.

Will a new Act address these problems?
Sandeep: Firstly, we do need a new law to bring in private unaided schools fee structure under its purview, as currently they have a free hand. But I do agree that making a law isn't enough as implementation is absent. There is the RTE Act which forbids screening during admissions, but it happens in every school. Capitation fees and donations are banned but it is paid everywhere. What we need is a provision in the law that also makes government officers accountable for inaction. If the concerned officer doesn't act after receiving the complaint, strict action should be taken against him and this provision should be in the law.

What were your other demands during the hunger strike?
Ravindra: We want teachers to be paid salaries according to the Sixth Pay Commission. Right now, we pay premium fees to schools thinking our children are being taught by qualified teachers. But the schools don't keep a check on the quality of teaching, as they do not want to pay good salary to teachers. They pay a pittance because of which under qualified and inexperienced teachers are recruited. This is cheating the parents and to ensure we get good teachers, we demand that pay commissions be applicable to private unaided schools as well.

Why are parents resorting to measures like hunger strike and breaking into President's convoy?
Anjali Patil: We have approached everyone right from local education officers to ministers but who cares? Some parents jumped over a compound wall in the Collector's office despite heavy security, a few parents went without food for seven days and I barged into President Pratibha Patil's security convoy to give her a memorandum of demands. It has affected our lives so deeply that a few parents I know aren't planning a second child, as they do not have the money to pay for their first-born's fees. In such situations, we have to create a noise. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

What do you suggest as a solution to fee hikes?
Sandeep: Ideally, the law should be strong enough and clear. Right now, even the definition of fees is unclear to all parents. For example, a school is allowed to collect a term fee which is not more than one month's tuition fee. But how many schools implement that? Also, what about fees taken as charges for library, sports, swimming, annual picnics and computer. Should these be compulsory? If yes, how much should be specified.
Mateen: To check profiteering, it should be made compulsory for schools to declare their annual income and accounts balance sheet on website. Secondly, as in Karnataka, where the government has specified an upper limit on fees according to grade and facilities, there should be some upper limit set for private unaided schools here.