Panel on private school fees formed

The State government on Thursday constituted a committee to look into the controversial issue of fixing fees in unaided schools in the State. The panel will be headed by the Commissioner of Public Instruction, Mohammed Mohsin.

Other members of the committee include the director, Department of State Educational Research and Training (DSERT), and several retired officials of education department.
“Private school managements have expressed displeasure at the current formula of fixing fees, which according to them is unscientific. This and other such complaints will be taken up by the committee. We are putting a time frame of at least three months to arrive at a decision,” said Mohsin.

“The private managements will be invitees to the various rounds of consultations and we would also like to get the opinions of other stakeholders like parents and the general public,” he said.

Meeting held

A meeting of officials of the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and private school managements was held on Thursday, where the issue of forming the committee was discussed.

The Department of Public Instruction had recently issued a circular asking all unaided schools to fix fees for classes 1 to 8, based on the present formula i.e. total salary paid to teacher plus 30 per cent of the total salary divided by total number of students.

Other prescribed charges include Rs 600 as development fees, Rs 38 as non-tuition fees for classes 6 to 8 and Rs 185 for classes 9 and 10.

In reply to the circular, the Karnataka Unaided School Management Association (Kusma) refused to follow the formula saying that fees should be charged in accordance with infrastructure and facilities in each school.