New Delhi: As schools reopen to welcome students for a new academic session, parents have noted with concern the alarming rise in tuition fees.
A survey conducted by the community social media platform LocalCircles revealed that one in two parents reported that fees have increased by 30 percent or more over the past two years.
It showed that 8 percent of parents said there had been more than 50 percent rise in total fee, while 42 percent experienced a 30-50 percent increase. This was further compounded by additional costs for new books and other school expenses at the beginning of a session, they said.
During the Covid pandemic, from 2020 to 2022, several state governments had stepped in to cap fees as children had transitioned to online classes. In 2020, Delhi ordered private schools not to charge anything other than tuition fees due to the financial hardship caused by the pandemic, mandating monthly payments instead of the usual quarterly or annual ones.
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Similarly, the Uttar Pradesh government directed schools not to hike fees for the 2020-21 academic session. The Allahabad High Court even ordered schools to refund part of the fee during the pandemic years.
The relief, however, was temporary as schools increased fees once the pandemic subsided. Data suggests that the annual all-inclusive fees for reputable private schools in tier 1 and 2 cities now range between Rs 1 lakh to Rs 4 lakh. In tier 3 and 4 cities, it is between Rs 50,000 and Rs 2 lakh.
President of the Action Committee Unaided Recognised Private Schools, Bharat Arora, however told ThePrint that only “reasonable” fee hikes have occurred. “The school managing committee decides how much they want to increase the fee; sometimes it’s 9 percent to 10 percent or even 2 percent. Without the approval of the Department of Education (DOE), no school can increase fees,” he added.
The LocalCircles survey data included 27,000 responses from parents in 312 districts of India. Of these respondents, 66 percent were men & 34 percent women.
Speaking to ThePrint, LocalCircles founder Sachin Taparia said that one of the major worries of parents was that household earnings had not increased, but they had to pay schools more than 50 percent of previous fees.
“Some parents said they have to dip into their savings to fund their child’s education,” Taparia said.
In 2018, the Delhi HC emphasised the need for collaboration between private unaided schools and regulatory authorities. Justice Sanjeev Narula said in the judgment, “The primary obligation to provide education lies with the state, and it is their responsibility that every child has access to education. Participation of private unaided schools has been permitted out of necessity, since the State is unable to perform its function adequately.”
However, according to the LocalCircles survey, 67 percent of parents said state governments had not been effective in capping or limiting excessive fee increases by schools.
In Delhi, schools built on government land cannot increase fees without official permission, which affects around 400 top schools. In Tamil Nadu, the government forms a committee to determine admission fees in private schools, considering factors such as the school’s location, infrastructure, administrative expenses, maintenance costs, and reasonable surplus required for growth.
Since the Right to Education is a fundamental right, Taparia suggested if state governments were unable to address the issue, a board like CBSE should intervene and issue guidelines. “Schools are a trust in India, they are not a profit machine” he said.
(Edited Tikli Basu)
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