PMK founder Dr. S. Ramadoss expressed concern over complaints about collection of admission fees in government schools and urged the State government to issue a strict order against it.
In a statement on Saturday, he said there were complaints from parents that government schools in Chennai were collecting a fee of ₹1000 to ₹1500 for admission up to Class X and ₹3,000 to ₹6,000 for Class XI and receipts were not issued.
Parents have organised protests in Chennai, Tiruppur. Avinashi among other places on the issue. The government schools were collecting the admission fees despite a warning from School Education Minister K.A Sengottaiyan, he pointed out.
“While I am happy to note that the number of students seeking admission to government schools is going up, on the other hand forcible collection of fees is disturbing,” Dr. Ramadoss said and added that not all parents were rich and collecting fees up to ₹6,000 was not justifiable.
Dr. Ramadoss noted that some schools had reasoned out that they were collecting the fees to pay temporary teachers. But the government was allocating funds for that. At a time when parents were suffering due to the COVID-19 crisis, fees should not be collected forcibly, he urged.
