Chandigarh Education Department set to exempt fee for Class IX, X

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 1

The UT Education Department would exempt the fee for Classes IX and X for government and government-aided schools on Thursday, said a senior official of the department.

The formal orders in this regard will be released on Thursday. The move is aimed at supporting parents from the economically weaker section.

The existing fee structure for Classes IX and X includes annual charges of Rs164 and monthly dues of Rs152. However, no tuition fee is charged from girl students and Scheduled Caste (SC) students. Scheduled Caste boys and girls had to pay half of all other funds — monthly and annual. Besides, no tuition fee is charged from the OBC boys, wards of ex-servicemen, widows and physically challenged students with parental annual income less than Rs1.5 lakh.

Over 5,000 vacant seats

The UT Education Department is planning to advertise more than 5,000 vacant seats from Classes I to VIII for the 2020-21 session, confirmed Director School Education, Rubinderjit Singh Brar. However, it has been clarified that no seats have been increased to accomodate the rush of students from private schools.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, several parents have been finding it difficult to bear the expenses of private schools.

Hundreds of request made by parents to exempt fee in private schools have fallen on deaf ears. So, parents are now finding government schools a feasible option.

The Education Department is planning to hold online admission via portal. An advertisement will be released mid-July.

Calling teachers to school

After the Ministry of Human Resource Development issued letter to the University Grants Commission Chairman on “guidelines for phased reopening — Unlock 2.0” called for work from home for faculty members/ teachers/ researchers/ non-teaching staff till July 31, the UT Education Department will take a view on whether to call government teachers to schools.

Recently, the department allowed school heads to call 50 per cent of their staff to schools.