Hyderabad School Parents’ Association submits its recommendations to the government on regulating fee structure

Exerting pressure on the State government to regulate fee structure in schools, the Hyderabad School Parents’ Association (HSPA) has come up with several recommendations to lessen the burden on parents.

One of the key suggestions it has made is not to allow schools to avoid coming under the District Fee Regulation Committees (DFRCs) promised by the government on various occasions. Another recommendation is that no unaided private school, including minority institutions, irrespective of the fees charged, should be exempted from audit or scrutiny by the DFRC.

“This is important to pass the test of courts, to which the schools would most likely appeal, in order to stop the formation of DFRCs,” the HSPA said in a report submitted to the government.
Earlier, the government had promised to constitute DFRCs following allegations from parents that the school managements were fleecing them in the absence of a proper monitoring system both with regard to tuition fee and donation collected in the name of seat reservation fee and seat upgradation fee.

The HSPA said the DFRCs should be headed by retired judges like the Admission and Fee Regulation Committees (AFRCs) formed for deciding the fee structure for professional courses. The AFRC recommendations are valid for three years and there is a differential structure depending on the infrastructure and expenses incurred by the respective colleges.

Venkat, a representative of the HSPA, said the recommendations were finalised after studying the best practices of various States in the country. The report said the term ‘school fee’ should be defined clearly and should include transport, food and other activities as well. “In fact, this definition was recommended by the High Court of Delhi.”

The Fee Regulation Committees should be at the district level as well as State level with the State having an Appellate Authority to whom both the schools and parents can appeal against any decision of the DFRC, the HSPA suggested. It also wanted the government to come up with adequate measures to ensure that children were not harassed with regard to Transfer Certificates (TCs) given if their parents raised any issue. It also wanted refund of all the excess fee collected with interest.

Meanwhile, the Telangana Yuvasena has also submitted a request to the government to expedite the process of forming the DFRCs as schools were already making admissions for the next year. Komakula Srinivas, president of Yuvasena, said admissions in all the CBSE schools should be stopped till the government constitutes the committees.