Dept tells private schools to refund capitation fee

Tribune News Service

Jammu, September 14

Acting on the complaints of parents, the Jammu and Kashmir School Education Department today went tough against the private schools for charging capitation fee and directed for immediate refund of it to parents.

“Any private school charging capitation fees/admission fees in violation of the RTE Act, 2009, and the Fee Fixation Committee orders may refund it to the parents immediately; orders to be issued shortly,” Asgar Hassan Samoon, Principal Secretary, School Education, announced it on Twitter.

Samoon referred to the recent letter of the Committee for Fixation of Fee Structure wherein the latter had sought a direction to all private educational institutions for not charging admission fee in violation of the orders of the committee, court and government.

Principal secretary order

Any private school charging capitation fees/admission fees in violation of the RTE Act, 2009, and the Fee Fixation Committee orders may refund it to the parents immediately; orders to be issued shortly. —Asgar Hassan Samoon, Principal secretary, School education

The committee also suggested for initiating action against such private schools having already collected admission fee. It revealed that it received complaints from parents alleging that private institutions had been charging a huge amount of admission fee in violation of the committee’s orders.

On September 11, the UT Administration had declared that all private schools might be asked to reduce tuition fees of students by 30 per cent in view of closure of schools due to the Covid-19 lockdown for seven months (from March to September).

There are more than 5,000 private schools in the Union Territory. Of them, 2,276 are in the Jammu division.