HYDERABAD: From coughing up lakhs of rupees in capitation fee to pulling strings for recommendation letters, parents are seen going all out to ensure their children get a seat in one of the top schools, this admission season.
While as per rulebook, schools cannot collect more than 5,000 as the capitation fee or donation, a clutch of institutions, parents claim, seek a much larger sum in exchange for admission.
“I wanted my child to get through to a particular school in Miyapur as it is among the best in our area. But for that, I not only had to get a reference but also pay 25,000 for his LKG admission,” a parent said.
Another parent who recently got his kid admission in a well-known school in Begumpet also said that he got a recommendation from an official at the Secretariat, to ensure it was done.
At times, there are also middlemen who get involved – promising a seat in a school – and demand lakhs of rupees for the job. “I was asked to pay 1 lakh for my child’s admission in class 3 in a school in Secunderabad,” said a parent said who turned down the offer.
Some principals TOI spoke to said they receive hundreds of recommendations and requests during admission season. “Sometimes parents don’t even check if there are seats available in a particular school, before reaching out. I get hundreds of calls with recommendations for seats,” said K Praveen Raju, president of Independent School Managements Association (ISMA).
S Narasimha Reddy, principal of Hyderabad Public School, Ramanthapur, said that such is the rush during this time of the year that he doesn’t answer calls from unknown numbers. “Because I know, majority of them are requests related to admission,” he said.
While admitting to parents going to great lengths for a seat in a reputed school, members of the Hyderabad School Parents Association (HSPA) claim that it is because of the limited number of quality schools in the city.
