Annual day function in the city schools is no more a dull gathering with low turnouts.Now a major event in the calendar of most of the schools,annual day functions have become a way for school managements to market themselves and even take donations from parents.In a complaint registered with the education departments of both Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts by a child rights NGO,nine schools from the city were accused of collecting Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 from the parents as donation for conducting their annual day events.In most of the schools,the budget of such events range anywhere between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 6 lakh,officials of the school education department said.
Some of the schools in the city are now under the scanner of education departments of both Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts for charging a special fee from parents.Demanding a probe into the matter,the complainants have said that most schools in the city are charging special fee from parents.
Parents said that the school functions have become elaborate in the last few years with every school trying to make the show as pompous as possible.There are over 18 stage events which are performed by students in each of these functions.Some schools even have mass drills for which students practice for days together and miss their classes.Managements are not bothered about any of this.They just need their publicity, said Pitara Ravi,a parent and one of the complainants.
Balala Hakkula Sangham,an NGO working for child rights,lodged a formal complaint against these schools with the district education officers of Ranga Reddy and Hyderabad on Tuesday.Ironically,parents do not even approve most of the programmes organised by schools.Most schools conduct cinematic dance programmes.Students from kindergarten are made to dance to Telugu and Hindi item numbers, said a parent.
In most cases,schools are using the event as a marketing strategy,complainants said.Each of the schools wants an eminent guest to preside over the function.These widely publicized functions are aimed at attracting more students in the next academic year, said Achyuta Rao from Balala Hakkula Sangham.To attract huge crowd,the events are no longer held inside the school compound,officials said.Interestingly,in the past one month,20 schools conducted their annual day events in Ravindra Bharathi,Saifabad which charges a minimum of Rs 50,000 for staging an event.
Parents said from dance events to skits,they are expected to bear the expenses of costumes and makeup.For clothes and makeup parents would be spending nearly Rs 3,000 on each student.If donation too included in this,on an average each parent spends about Rs 10,000 on annual day celebrations, said Radhika Reddy,a parent said.
DEOs said that the schools are not supposed to charge anything over and above their annual school fee and hence collecting donations for annual day functions are illegal.We will look into the complaint and act as per the rules, said Usha Rani,DEO,Ranga Reddy.