Pune parents unite to seeks school-fee legislation; protest held in city

The Pune Parents United, a working group of parents whose children are in private schools in the city, held a protest at the Balgandharva Rangmandir chowk on Sunday, calling for an ordinance to regulate school fees in the state.

Around 200 parents participated in Sunday’s protest.

The demands of the protesting parents were officially sent in a demand letter on August 10 by the parents’ group.

“Schools are ignoring parents’ demands and are forcing them to pay fees on the pretext of online education. Considering the given situation, the schools are not giving us any attention. Parents are forced to come onto the streets in protest. Parents from various schools participated in this protest. Our demand is an immediate ordinance regarding fee regulation,” said Mukund Kirday, coordinator, Pune Parents United.

“The demand to cut down fees is totally reasonable as expenses on gymnasiums, labs, school lunches, transport, examinations and repairs are saved. Why should parents pay for these?

Barring the expenses related to salaries of teachers and non-teaching staff, other expenses have not incurred. In some schools these expenses (apart from salaries) constitute almost 50 per cent to 60 per cent of the total expenses,” he claimed.

“During this Covid pandemic everyone is hit hard financially. In such circumstances private schools can’t be thinking of maximising profit. All private schools, like Ryan in our case, shall only charge for online classes.

As all other facilities are not being used, these charges should be skipped. School-management says there are no-clear guidelines from government about reducing fees hence they won’t reduce fees. We as parents fail to understand why the government can’t make a decision on this topic,” said Aarti Mahajan, a parent.

Pune parents unite to seeks school-fee legislation; protest held in city

 359,050 total views