After a long wait, the state government has issued a notification, the Karnataka Educational Institutions (Regulation of Certain Fees and Donations) (Amendment) Rules 2018 that regulates fee in schools across the city.

Previously, the draft rules were put up on the public domain and objections were invited as the draft of Karnataka Educational Institutions (Regulation of certain fee and donations) (Amendment) Rules 2016 was published. This is to come into effect starting from this academic year.

The new set of fee regulations holds good across all the boards. The notification has put a cap of 15% on the annual fee hike. This means that no private school will be allowed to increase the fee by 15% a year.

The fee in the private unaided institutions must be disclosed within December 31 every year and the same would be put up on the notice board at the time of admissions to make it transparent for parents.

Schools will also disclose, by December 31, the audit report of its finances in the previous financial year, details of teaching resources, results in the public exam and a statement showing the computation and compliance of the fee structure as per the rules on the website of the Primary and Secondary Education department.

The notification also gives a break up of the factors that ought to be considered when schools fix the fee. This would be computed based on the actual salary expenditure incurred on the teaching and non-teaching staff, including outsourced staff, maintenance costs, rent, debt servicing and depreciation among the other factors.

Though the schools demanded that the maintenance fee be Rs 5,000, the government decided to cap it at Rs 2,500.

The total fee that the school can charge would be a sum total of the expenses that the school incurs, the salary it has to pay for the teaching and non-teaching staff and will also take into consideration the number of admissions made.

In most schools, however, the admissions have begun for the academic year. In cases where there are complaints of the fee being charged exorbitantly high, parents can approach the District Education Regulation Authority (DERA) according to the department officials.