Private schools in tight spot as merely 8 pc parents pay fee in Rohtak

Ravinder Saini

Tribune News Service

Rohtak, May 30

More than 450 private schools in the district are finding themselves in a tight spot as only eight per cent parents on an average have, as per the claims by two associations of private schools here, deposited the fee of their wards for April and May, while online classes are being conducted by majority of schools ever since the beginning of the new academic session.

“A total over 2.5 lakh students are enrolled in the private schools and around 20,000 teaching and non-teaching employees work in those schools. We have no funds left, with which we pay salary to the employees, as parents are not paying the tuition fee even in instalments despite repeated requests. But, we are bound to the bear fixed expenses such as building tax, EMI of the buses and renewal of their fitness and other loans taken for running the school,” said Ravinder Nandal, district president, Haryana Private School Sangh.

He informed that of the 450 private schools, 370 schools were affiliated to the Haryana Board of School Education (HBSE) and rest to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). The fee deposit percentage in the CBSE-affiliated schools was much higher than the HBSE-affiliated schools, following better financial background of their students than latter, he added.

“The HBSE schools have so far received an average two per cent fee while the figure of the CBSE-affiliated schools is 16 per cent. There are several other such schools where payment of fee is less than one per cent. We have given all options to the parents for depositing the fee as per their convenience but they are not ready to understand our ordeal. They have put us in a tough spot,” he added.

Dr Ravinder Gugnani, president, Rohtak CBSE School Association, said the parents should understand that livelihood of thousands of teaching and non-teaching employees of private schools were dependent on the students’ fees.

“How can we incur all expenses if the parents don’t pay the fees. We are not pressurising any parent, but those who can afford, must deposit the fee to help the school maintain its operations,” Gugnani added.

Anshul Pathania, secretary of the association, said misinterpretation of the government’s orders being used as a tool to misguide the parents and absurd campaigns being run on social media against private schools were the main reasons behind the non-deposition of fee by the parents, who were not aware of neither income nor expenses of schools.

“The parents should deposit the fee as per government’s guidelines keeping in view thousands of teaching and non-teaching employees, who get salary from the fees to feed their family. We demand the state government to fix date for fee collection and clearly communicate it to the parents. It should also formulate a policy with date-wise schedule for annual charges to be deposited,” Pathania added.

Mayank Karan Hooda, another school owner, said surprisingly, parents neither were depositing the fee nor were approaching the school for any financial help. In this situation, the schools were put in a tough spot to come out of this crisis, he added.