Private schools find clever ways to hike fees, hassle parents
Guardians rue midterm increase, new categories
Private schools in the capital have found innovative ways to extract money from parents seeking admission for their children in nursery.
Some schools have increased the admission fee from Rs 200 to around Rs 10,000. Others have added more categories such as ‘miscellaneous’ in their fee structure.
A parent who got his son admitted in Frank Anthony Public School at Lajpat Nagar in south-east Delhi said, “At the time of admission, the school took Rs 9,165 as quarterly fee in nursery, including the admission fee which was Rs 200. After some days, the authorities sent us a letter in which they asked us to pay Rs 19,695 as revised quarterly fee.”
“The school has increased the tuition fee by around 25 per cent from Rs 2,130 to Rs 2,695 per month. And they said that the rest is the one-time payment — the admission fee,” he added.
He said the fee should be hiked if the school is developing its infrastructure or providing additional facilities.
“The increment in the salary is seven to eight per cent as compared to the hike in fee that is around 25 per cent,” he added.
Sumit Vohra, founder of admissionsnursery.com, said, “Schools hike fee every year, but this year we are getting more complaints. It seems schools don’t want to take the responsibility of economically weaker section students. They are trying to pass it on to the general category by increasing fee.”
Another parent, whose son studies in Adreil High School at Rohini in outer Delhi, said, “The school has increased tuition fee by around 20 per cent from Rs 3,150 to Rs 3,650. The authorities have added another category in the monthly fee structure — miscellaneous. And the lab charges for upper kindergarten students is Rs 650 per month.”
“The school said miscellaneous charges of Rs 500 per month is for the mobile messages the administration will send to each parent,” he added.
“Not only the miscellaneous fee, the lab charges are also not justified. What kind of a lab does a nursery kid need?” the parents said.
School authorities were not available to comment on the issue.
