Pvt schools violate diktat on disclosing fee structure

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 17

Several private schools have not been adhering to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) diktat on mandatory disclosure of the fee structure on the official website of the affiliated schools.

Browsing through the official websites of several reputed private schools of the UT, The Tribune found that many of them have not disclosed the fee structure for all classes on their websites.

St Joseph’s Senior Secondary School, Sector 44, has not disclosed its fee structure on the school website. School principal Monica Chawla did not respond to the query despite repeated attempts.

A woman seeking admission for her daughter to an entry-level class in the school lamented: “The school has not displayed any information on the website related to the fee. We are also unaware about the bifurcation of the tuition fee. The school just handed over the slip when we paid admission fee of Rs 28,500 for the nursery class.”

Some schools have shown fee for only nursery class, whereas they have been asked to give details of the fee structure with complete bifurcation of monthly fee, admission fee, development charges and building fund for all classes up to XII.

KB DAV School, Sector 7, is one the schools dodging the orders on fee structure. The fee structure tab on the website directs to a PDF page, that has the details of fee structure for entry-level only. However, these details are also partial as the fee for only first quarter (three months) have been disclosed.

Pooja Parkash, School Principal, said: “We will look into it and update the details on the website by Monday. The details of the present fee structure have also been sent to the District Education Office.”

Last year, the CBSE while introducing the new affiliation bye-laws also asked the schools to update websites with school’s fee structure, along with other vital information. In 2016, a circular issued by the board had also mandated the schools to upload fee details on the website. It stated, “…as a step towards bringing transparency on the facilities given by schools for the information of the board, parents, students and other stakeholders.”

Tender Heart School, Sector 33, has also not disclosed the fee structure of any class on its official website. Principal Vikrant Suri said: “I will check the website on Monday and look into it.”

Several other schools are yet to disclose the fee structure for 2019-20 sessions while the admission for entry class has started, keeping parents in ambiguity.

Carmel Convent School, Sector 9, has not updated the fee details for the 2018-19 sessions. Principal Mary Supreeta asserted that the website has the fee structure details. However, she did not comment upon validity of the fee structure.

Nitin Goyal from the Chandigarh Parents’ Association said: “The Education Department has been lenient in monitoring and regulating the fee structure of private schools, who have been looting the parents.”