Parents protest against school over fee hike

Hundreds of parents protested outside Presidency School in East Bengaluru's Kasturinagar on Tuesday over fee discrepancies.

They held placards aloft and bellowed slogans demanding the waiver of Rs 41,000 the school collects in addition to the tuition fee.

Gurunatha Reddy, a parent, said the school claimed to have collected the additional sums for building construction. "But the fee goes up by 5% to 10% each year from classes 1 to 10. This is a huge burden on us," he said.

Another parent claimed that they asked the school to reveal the fee structure in January to decide if they should shift their wards elsewhere.

"They said we could apply for TC in January, but didn't tell us how much the fee would be. We received the fee structure by April first week while keeping the last date to apply for TC as January 31. They did this so that the parents have no option but to withdraw their children after paying the full year's fee. The new admission for LKG costs Rs 1.72 lakh," said the parent.

The school management later invited five protesting parents for talks. But when they declined, they were forced to address all of them. "They assured us to send an email on the issue by Monday evening. If the issue continues, we'll hold further protests," Reddy said.

When contacted, the school's principal Thangadurai declined to comment on the matter.