UT ready with policy to check pvt schools’ monopoly : The Tribune India

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UT ready with policy to check pvt schools’ monopoly

CHANDIGARH: No school can charge admission fee or re-admission fee. The supply or sale of books, stationery items and uniforms, which is deemed a commercial activity, by the schools will also not be allowed. The schools will be allowed to charge tuition fee up to 115 per cent of their expenditure, which will also include the margin for future investment in education.

UT ready with policy to check pvt schools’ monopoly


Nitin Jain

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 5

No school can charge admission fee or re-admission fee. The supply or sale of books, stationery items and uniforms, which is deemed a commercial activity, by the schools will also not be allowed.

The schools will be allowed to charge tuition fee up to 115 per cent of their expenditure, which will also include the margin for future investment in education.

There will be a common formula in place to work out the fee to be charged per student by the schools.

Besides, the schools will not receive profit from students and parents in any other way.

The UT Administration is all set to impose these conditions on the private schools in the city as part of its mechanism to keep a check on the monopolistic tendencies of some schools which, the Administration feels, are natural to germinate and grow in such an environment if an eye is not kept on these.

Notwithstanding criticism from different quarters, especially private schools, and on the persistent demand of parents, the Chandigarh Administration has finalised the mechanism to regulate the fee and other charges in private schools in the city.

After considering the suggestions and objections from all stakeholders, the final draft of the much-hyped policy, which proposes a holistic framework, to regulate the fee structure is in an advanced stage of implementation.

“We have sent it to the legal remembrancer for vetting, following which it will be sent to the Administrator for a formal nod,” UT Education Secretary Sarvjit Singh told Chandigarh Tribune while confirming that the new policy had been finalised.

The first-of-its-type policy, a copy of which is with Chandigarh Tribune, entails recommendation to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for withdrawal of affiliation, penalty and even resumption of a site in case of continued default by any school found violating the policy. Any such violation will also be treated as a violation of the Estate Rules.

A committee, headed by the Director, School Education, with the DCFA, the DEO, the Deputy Director, School Education, a chartered accountant (to be engaged on payment by the department) and three parents (to be nominated by the Education Secretary) as members will monitor the implementation of the policy and attend to complaints and grievances, if any, in this regard. The committee will be free to evolve its own procedures.

How the fee will be calculated

As the expenditure involved for junior and senior classes varies, the fee-calculation exercise will be bifurcated for each school in two broad categories, one for up to Class V students and the other for Class VI onwards.

This, while respecting the freedom of the schools to set their quality standard, will ensure that reasonable fee is charged in return for the level of service being rendered.

Audited expenditure

The audited expenditure, for the sake of uniformity, transparency and easy comprehension by all concerned, will form the basis of fixing and revising the fee from time to time as per the prescribed tabulation and will be subject to verification by government-appointed auditors/chartered accountants. The tabulation will be done on the basis of the expenditure involving land, building, building extensions, furniture, sports consumables, electronics and other equipment, services such as electricity and water, salaries of staff and any other expense, to be specified.

The schools will have to specify their total per month expenses and the per student per month expenses.

Schools will have to furnish data

To begin with, the schools will be required to furnish the data of the past three years to calculate the fee structure.

Books may be prescribed sans profit

With a view to facilitating the timely provision of certain books, which are not generally stocked by booksellers in the city, in case the schools may wish to prescribe these, with the intent of better tutoring, they can arrange direct supply from the publishers at a rate, which will be the maximum retail price minus the profit margin the publisher keeps for shopkeepers.

Proprietary stationery items cannot be prescribed. Only good quality stationery of more than one reputed makes, available aplenty in the market, can be recommended.

Why the policy

Of late, there has been a flood of reports about how some schools fleece parents, who have no option but to bend backwards to meet the demands raised by schools so that their children are able to study in good schools and are treated well there.

Role of Administration

The spaces for educational infrastructure are planned and provided in the precincts of the city by the government to ensure that there are enough avenues for children in the city to get education, without having to travel unreasonably long distances everyday. Education having been enshrined as a fundamental right in the Constitution, land has generally been allotted by the Administration at concessional rates in the past with the sentiment that no child is deprived of good education on account of financial constraints on the part of parents.

Why now

“Geographical monopoly of schools is inherent in the plan of things and understandably in the ethos behind the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court issued in 2013 requiring the Administration to put in place a mechanism to keep a check on the monopolistic tendencies of some schools,” the UT Administration reasoned while framing the policy.

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