42 Army School students threatened with debarment

Forty-two children of the Army Public School, Parachute Regiment Training Centre in JC Nagar, were threatened with explusion on Monday if they failed to pay admission fees to the school.

The children’s parents have been at loggerheads with the school management over various issues like hike in fees, cases of harassment against the children and demands of exorbitant ‘re-admission’ fees. The children are students of standard one to 10.

In  letters to the parents, the management of the school warned that the expulsion order will apply from January 2 unless the children fulfill the criteria laid down by the school.

The parents are up in arms over the demand of a ‘re-admission’ fee to the tune of Rs 20,945 and the monthly fees, which parents claim have been hiked substantially.

According to sources, the problems began after the school proposed a name change from its earlier name of Parachute Regiment School to Army Public School, PRTC, to the CBSE Board, to which it was affiliated on August 2011.

This had been granted on August 2012, on the condition that the management does not charge any fresh admission fees from students, the CBSE’s letter revealed.

Around the same time, the school also came under the Army Welfare Education Society (AWES) after a proposal by the school management.

Admission fees

The parents, however, claim that the school has been openly demanding admission fees despite a clear directive from the CBSE not to do so. They also claim that children and the parents have been harrassed over the issue.

“The school has put up a huge banner with names of the children and their parents in front of the school and named them as defaulters. This is to humiliate and intimidate us,” said Lakshmi Narayan, a parent whose child has allegedly been facing such treatment in school.

“My boy who presently studies in the eighth standard was humiliated in front of the whole school,” Lakshmi Narayan said. 

In another case, two children were removed from all curricular activities at the school. “My boys study in standard 5 and 9, besides being consciously excluded in any curricular activities.

They have not received their marks cards from the previous year and are undervalued,” said another parent, Melquier Celestine. She added that the previous year marks cards of all involved children have not been released, against which they filed a case.

A High Court order dated April 3, 2012 has directed the school to give the marks cards, but the school management has still not complied with the order.

Similar orders cautioning against the high fees have been issued by the Commissioner of Public Instruction and even these have not been followed. The school principal refused to comment on the issue.