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The Delhi government’s directive asking private schools in the city to charge tuition fees only on a monthly basis till the lockdown is in place, has drawn mixed reactions from parents. While parents are relieved that they do not have to pay miscellaneous fee like transport and annual charges, they are also worried that the school may end up charging these fee heads once the lockdown is lifted.
A parent who didn’t wish to be named said that while everyone was sending congratulatory messages after the announcement, they are now beginning to think as to why Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia did not clarify if fee heads not being charged now will be charged later.
The parent, whose son studies at a private school in Dwarka, says that parents are now demanding that private schools should:
Rajinder Nagar Amit Sharma, who lost his hospitality sector job to the coronavirus pandemic is relieved with the fact that he now has to pay only Rs 6,000 as tuition fee. Like the parent quoted above, Sharma too, wants schools to waive annual charges and development fee for this quarter.
Sharma, who used to earn Rs 40,000 has been without a job since February this year. Similarly, Naina (name changed) fears that her son’s school in north Delhi might add the remaining fee heads to the next quarter and then force parents to pay up. She, too, lost her aviation job with the onset of Coronavirus.
While schools have welcomed the Delhi government’s decision, they are opposed to demands from parents who want annual and development fee for the first quarter to be waived completely.
RC Jain, President of Delhi Sate Public School Management Association said that he welcomes “the government’s decision because this has dispelled rumours that parents have to pay fee at all.”
On the issue of development and annual fee waivers, he said that schools will take month-wise fee and pay month-wise salaries of teachers at the moment and focus on other fee heads later. ‘We will decide about development fee, annual charge, transport fee later, this directive is only applicable for the lockdown period.”
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