Private school fee structure facing hiccups

The private school fee structure issue has been facing hiccups right from inception. When the Tamil Nadu Schools (Regulation of Collection of Fee) Act 2009 came into force in July last year, it was seen as egalitarian measure. But almost immediately, it ran into roadblocks.

The need for a regulated fee structure arose after several parents associations protested the indiscriminate increase of fees by many private school managements.

The government then set the Justice Govindarajan panel, which fixed the fee structure for 10,930 schools in the State.

In Chennai, an association led by parents of students studying in both matriculation and CBSE schools spearheaded the protest for a reasonable fee structure. But when the Act came, it left the CBSE schools off the loop. Despite the law coming into force in July last, the fee structure was announced three months later, in October, after the State Platform for CSS sent a legal notice. The fee structure details put up on the government website included schools that had not given any information on the fee collected and had stated that schools should not collect any fees without prior permission from the committee. Yet, there has been no let up in the tussle between the government, private school managements and parents.

Though it is mandatory for schools to put up their fee structure on the notice boards, not many complied and managements continued to charge excessive fees. The managements then went to court while parents organised protests outside schools and lodged complaints. On July 26 this year, after much hue and cry over the fee structure by private school managements, the government blinked and the Justice Govindarajan panel started working on a new structure for over 6,000 schools that had sent objection letters. The revised structure would be applicable for schools for the next three years, and would be put up for public viewing, the government had stated. On September 14, the High Court stayed the operations of the Justice Govindarajan committee much to the jubilation of school managements and chagrin of parents.

Subsequently, there were multiple protests by parents and the State Platform for Common School System sought vacation of the stay. On October 5, the Madras HC vacated the stay and ordered the schools to follow the fee structure prescribed by the Justice Govindarajan panel. But on October 22 a day after the government uploaded the fee structure for all schools Justice Govindarajan put in his papers. On October 30, former HC judge K Raviraja Pandian was appointed the new fee panel head.EB