By Shafee Ahmed Ko, TwoCircles.net,
Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government has fixed the fees of more than 10,000 private self-financing schools across the state. The decision was taken after a detailed study into the matter by the Private Schools Fee Determination Committee, a statutory body appointed by the state government.
The new fee structure has put the fees of the higher secondary at Rs 11,000, the high school at Rs 9000, the middle school at Rs 8000 and the elementary school at Rs 5000 per annum. The fees have been fixed for 10, 934 schools in the state.
The government had enacted the ‘Regulation of Collection of Fee Rules 2009’ according to which the statutory body chaired by Retired Judge Justice Govindarajan was mooted. The fees structure was finalized considering the income (fees collected from students) and the expenditure of the school including salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff, electricity and telephone expenses etc.
The rule faced a lot of hurdles to reach the present situation. The regulation of fees structure as per the Govindarajan Committee report was challenged by the private schools in the court. Js KBK Vasuki stayed the operation of the committee report fixing individual fees structure for schools till the disposal of the writ petitions, on September 14. After the stay order, there were stray protests by the parents against the demand of high fees from students. Prince Gajendra Babu, an activist, filed a petition against the stay order. The state government also followed suit. Finally on October 5, the Madras High Court’s First Bench comprising of Chief Justices MY Eqbal and TS Sivagnana set aside the single judge interim order.
There was no fixed rate for the fees collected from students by several private schools and they were exorbitantly high. There was also demand for high donations for various reasons. This led to protests between the school authorities and parents. The new rule has come as a real blessing for the parents. However, there has also been confusion regarding the new fees structure as several schools reportedly refuse to follow the new regulations. The parents are at a total mess as they are not sure whether to follow the government regulations or to follow the schools’ diktats.