GURUGRAM: Private schools in the state have sought an exemption from the revised form VI, a prerequisite for hiking fees during the academic year, despite the education department extending the last date to March 31.
Citing practical and technical issues, private schools have instead urged the education department to allow them to increase the fees for this academic session within the maximum permissible limit of 10.13% and not link the same with the consumer price index and the average increase in salaries of faculty members.
This is because many teachers were laid off last year due to the pandemic and only some of them rehired recently.
Col Kumar Pratap Singh, district president, Haryana Progressive Schools’ Conference, said, “The notification in December last year was published at a time when school education was disrupted due to the pandemic. From fees collection to losses incurred on transport services, the actual expenditure of a school is not getting factored in. Thus, linking the school fee hike with salaries of teachers will not be fair to the schools.”
“We have urged the state government, the directorate of school education, and the education minister to consider our request for this academic session and work on effective mechanisms for implementing the new rules from the next session,” he added.
Though the education department has said that the new formula of linking fees with the consumer price index has to be implemented this year, schools contest that while calculating the prorate amount (amount divided or distributed proportionally), they are facing technical issues due the variance in the teachers’ strength in the current academic year as compared to the previous.
“Now, there are two problems that emerge because of this peculiar situation. First, the teacher count last year was reduced due to the pandemic, and it has now increased. The new batch of teachers have mostly lower salary components. So now, when we calculate the average increase of salaries, it is not reflecting the true picture,” said Yashpal Yadav, the state president of Haryana Siksha Sansthan Sangathan.
