– Sukanya Nandy
A clash between private schools, government and parents over the fee row issue has resulted in an indefinite strike by the schools. The schools then decided not to hold classes starting from November 5 on the call of the Forum of Private School of Rajasthan. All RBSE and CBSE schools in Kota district will remain closed.
About 1161 schools have closed online classes which will affect more than 2 lakh students in the district.
In this regard, Damodar Goyal, founder president, Society for Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan told EducationWorld, “A call has been taken for an indefinite strike but classes may resume if some fee relief package is granted to the schools by the government. They should take a pragmatic approach to resolve the situation instead of creating confusion.”
A joint meeting of all school association officials was held on Monday, November 2, 2020. Forum member Sanjay Sharma said that school offices as well as both online and offline classes will also be closed.
Ever since schools have shut down due to the pandemic, schools have been somehow conducting online classes, as per operators. The schools were unable to pay the teachers even the daily expenses and in such a situation, the employees of the schools have now completely refused to work without pay.
On September 9, the Rajasthan High Court on September 9 had issued direction to the schools to collect 70 per cent of tuition fees. However, recently, the state government had issued orders that CBSE schools and the Rajasthan board should reduce the tuition fees by 30-40 per cent in accordance with the reduced syllabus.
The forum of private schools in Rajasthan earlier said that these recent orders are creating a lot of dilemmas and have ambiguities. The delay is badly affecting 50,000 schools and 11 lakh employees.
As per the Rajasthan Rule (Regulation of School Fees) Act 2016:
- No school can collect any excess fee other than the fee fixed or approved under this Act.
- Every private school should have a parent-teacher association, which should be formed 30 days prior to the beginning of an academic year.
- Factors while determining the fee must include the location of the school, infrastructure and facilities provided, education standard as prescribed by the state government, expenditure on administration and maintenance, qualified teaching and non-teaching staff and any other factors as may be prescribed.
Read: Rajasthan: Pvt schools call indefinite mass strike from Nov 5 over fee issue
Also read: Kolkata schools to come up with revised fees
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