Schools to file plaint against Educomp for poor services

Firm provides teaching support for 1,500 schools in the State

The Karnataka State Private Schools Managements Federation has decided to file a consumer complaint against Educomp Solutions, a Delhi-based education company, for its poor services.

The firm provides computers and enabled teaching support for about 1,500 schools in the State.

Shashi Kumar, the Association’s organising secretary, told Deccan Herald that Educomp schools have been availing of the company’s services for the past five years. “Many schools have had complaints right from the beginning about the quality of the computer systems provided to them. They are not functional half of the year and students are not getting the intended benefit.”

Educomp also provides teaching aid to visually describe concepts prescribed in the textbook.

Kumar said the Educomp programme was indeed unique and many schools had hence opted for it. However, managements have not been able to make full use of it owing to lack of quality services on the part of Educomp. Moreover, the cost of maintaining the ineffective systems was becoming a burden on schools as they were paying about Rs 38 lakh for a period of five years, he said.

“It is huge money. Schools want to include the programme in their curricula since parents too find it useful and ask for it before admissions. But we are not able to do justice,” Kumar added.

‘No salary’

Educomp employees alleged that the company had not paid their salaries for the past several months. Yashoda, who quit her job as resource co-ordinator at Educomp in May, told Deccan Herald that the company had not paid her salary since January. “They haven’t paid me since January. Finally, I quit in May. My family was struggling to make ends meet, and without salary, they began suspecting if I really had a job. Educomp owes me Rs 60,000,” she said.

School managements said many institutions had not seen resource co-ordinators in the last six months, and in some cases, the whole of last year.

‘Bizarre complaint’

Educomp officials, on their part, said they had addressed all the complaints of schools from time to time and the issue being raised now was motivated. “It is bizarre. We have addressed the complaints of Shashi Kumar’s school. They have even sent us a letter stating that the problems were now resolved. We have log records of the usage of systems by all schools. We maintain this for analysing the utility of our products. As per records, many schools are making use of our teaching aids regularly,” said a member of the management of Educomp, requesting anonymity.

On the contrary, the member said, several schools owed money to the company running into several thousands