Student Parent Forum Himachal Pradesh staged a strong protest outside Directorate of Higher Education Shimla

Student Parent Forum Himachal Pradesh staged a strong protest outside Directorate of Higher Education Shimla against the arbitrary loot and heavy fees of private schools. After the demonstration, the delegation of the forum met the Director of Education Amarjeet Sharma and handed over a demand letter to him. The director assured that orders will be issued immediately for holding general meetings in private schools, formation of PTA and ban on fee hike for the year 2022. He will soon issue a notification in this regard. He said that he would soon send a proposal to the government to set up a law and regulatory commission to crack down on private schools. Vijender Mehra, Vivek Kashyap, Balak Ram, Vinod Birsanta, Ram Prakash, Poorna Chand, Virendra Negi, Dalip, Pratap Chand, Amit Kumar, Himi Devi, Rakesh, Ashok, Rakesh, Nitish Rajta, Vikas Kumar, Vikram Singh, Chaman Lal Darshan Lal, Naresh, Seema, Rajni etc were present.

Manch’s convener Vijendra Mehra and co-convener Vivek Kashyap have demanded a law from the state government to stop heavy fees, arbitrary loot, fee hike and illegal fee collection in private schools. He has demanded from all the political parties that they should clarify their stand on the arbitrary loot and exorbitant fees of private schools. He has warned the state government that if the government does not take a positive stand on the law, then the Student Parent Forum will open a front against the collusion of the state government and the education department with private schools. He has appealed to Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur to take initiative to implement the law to crack down on private schools so that seven lakh students and one million parents of the state get justice. He has urged all the political parties to include in their manifesto the issue of setting up of a law and regulatory commission to stop the arbitrary loot and heavy fees of private schools. He has said that due to the failure of the state government and the opposition and their collusion with private schools, private schools are continuously doing arbitrariness. Even during the Corona period, apart from tuition fees, private schools have been charging annual charges, computer fees, smart class rooms, miscellaneous, cares, sports, maintenance, infrastructure, building funds, transport and all other types of funds and charges. Private schools have cleverly continued the loot by converting more than eighty percent of the total fees into tuition fees in the year 2022. He has accused the state government of colluding with private schools. This government took three years to prepare the draft of the law itself. Two years ago, parents have given dozens of suggestions regarding the law, yet this government is deliberately reluctant to enact the law. The law should have been made in the last budget or monsoon session in any case, but due to the insensitivity of the government, the law has not been made yet. Due to the failure of the government, the fees of children have been increased from fifteen to fifty percent in the last two years and the government is silent on this increase. He has said that private schools are openly violating the guidelines of the Ministry of Human Resource Development of 2014 and the Department of Education dated December 5, 2019 on the matter of fee collection and are bypassing the role of the general body of the parents in deciding it. Schools are nearing the end of the session and despite the guidelines of the Education Department, PTA has not been formed in 99 percent of the schools. Both the state government and the education department are silent on this. Private schools are still collecting admission fees through the back door by levying annual charges and defying the Himachal Pradesh High Court’s 2016 judgment in which the High Court had stayed the collection of all types of charges. He has demanded from the state government that it should immediately enact a law and constitute a regulatory commission to administer the fees, curriculum and admission process in private schools.