Parents stage dharna outside ADC office

Allege private schools flouting RTE rules and guidelines

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, February 23

Managements of private schools and parents are at loggerheads again over the dispute pertaining to alleged flouting of the guidelines laid under the Right to Education Act 2009 by schools.

Parents today staged a dharna outside the office of the Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) at the District Administrative Complex.

ADC Rahul Chaba will convene a meeting of both parties next week.

Members of the Parents’ Rights Association alleged that the private schools of the city were openly flouting the RTE rules and guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court, directing the schools not to charge any capitation fee from the students.

Rohit Sharma, a member of the association, said, “Apart from charging annual fee, the private schools are also for re-admission, annual funds, SMS charges, smart class charges and development funds. Some schools have changed the name of annual charges to annual funds, and now to amalgamated funds to hoodwink the authorities.”

“As per the Act, the schools cannot engage in such commercial activities and must provide the parents with a list of books, notebooks and stationery items that the students need to take to schools. The parents must have the liberty to buy the items from wherever they wish to,” he said.

Sharma said the schools were either selling all items from school premises or directing the parents to buy the items from particular shops in the city.

“This is another way of making profit since the schools have an arrangement with these shops and take a profit margin from the sales,” he said, adding that despite clear guidelines, the schools were not using NCERT books and were teaching children from books of private publishers.

Meanwhile, members of the Punjab Unaided Schools Association (PUSA) convened a meeting and argued that they would abide by the directions given by the district administration, the state and Central government but would not bow down to pressure mounted upon them by a group of parents.

Legal advisor of PUSA, Rajan Garg said, “Last year too, the issue was raised by parents and the then SDM Anmol Singh Dhaliwal had convened meetings. Both sides had reached a consensus on the annual hike in charges. Now again, the same of parents are mounting pressure and creating trouble for the schools.”

He said while on the one hand, the parents wanted schools to stop selling books from their premises and on the other, they wanted the schools to place orders for NCERT books and then give them to the students.

“The parents can’t pick and choose rules as per their fancy. Last year, it was decided that the parents would not stage protests and would take up issues, if any, with the management committees of the schools concerned. But the association is now going against the consensus that it had signed,” Garg said.