Minister promises to introduce School Fee Regulation Bill in House today
Minister promises to introduce School Fee Regulation Bill in House today
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Victory! MLA Krishna Hegde gives juice to Jayant Jain, president of Forum
for Fairness in Education, who was on a hunger strike for a week.
pic/Satyajit Desai
For the past seven days, parents of children studying in private schools, representatives of NGOs working in the education sector and teachers from private schools had been on a hunger strike at Azad Maidan in Mumbai, demanding the government bring in a law to regulate fee hikes and also revise teacher salaries in accordance with the Sixth Pay Commission.
The strike was started by 26 people; 10 fell ill and were hospitalised while the remaining 16 continued the strike. Yesterday, after the protesters had gone without food for a week, Education Minister Rajendra Darda finally agreed to meet them.
Darda assured the parents that the new law, namely the School Fee Regulation Act, would be brought about by introducing the bill for it during the ongoing state assembly session and the government would do its best to get it passed quickly.
Jayant Jain, who is president of the NGO Forum for Fairness in Education (FFE) and was part of the strike, could not hold back his tears when the decision was made to end the strike.
"For months together we have been literally waging a war with the government and private unaided schools after getting numerous complaints from parents. We have even filed court cases and public interest litigations, but never have we achieved this success," said Jain. "I feel elated as finally the government has accepted our demands and all private schools will now be kept on a leash."
The striking parents had also demanded action against schools that violate the provisions of the Right to Education (RTE) Act. Sandip Chavan, a DY Patil School student's parent who was also on hunger strike, said, "Once the bill is introduced, it will be subject to discussion, but I hope it doesn't take too long to pass.
In the meantime, the Education Minister has promised to take action against schools that hike fees arbitrarily and indulge in profiteering. He has said he will instruct the deputy director of education to take action, and if things move slowly he will personally look into it."
Parents had also raised the issue of some schools collecting blank cheques from them as advance payment of fees, and Darda promised to file criminal complaints against school managements in such cases.
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Two city schools sent notices
TWO city schools have been sent notices by the PMC's education department. In the first case, the PMC sent a notice to the management of Rosary School, asking them the reason for collecting advance cheques for school fees from parents. After receiving a circular from school authorities to submit post-dated cheques for the academic year at the start of the year, parents of Rosary schoolkids wroteu00a0 to deputy director of education for Pune region, Sunil Magar, PMC education board chief Ramchandra Jadhav and secondary education officer of Zilla Parishad Vidya Shinde. The parents got a reply from the PMC chief Jadhav stating that he has written to the school as it been violating state norms. "If we get more complaints, we will take immediate action," said Jadhav. Parents of students of Sinhagad Springdale also wrote to the PMC officer on 50 per cent fee hike and Jadhav sent a letter to the school asking for an explanation.
Fee hike rollback
A few school managements have decided to roll back fee hikes. At Sinhagad Springdale Sschool, the management decided to reduce the proposed fee hike by 10 per cent, while a school in Pimpri scrapped its plan to increase the fee completely.
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