Irony: A government employee is a defaulter of private school

 

The Government should issue strict instructions to the government employees to clear the pending dues in private schools

 

As the new academic session commences in schools, the voice goes louder against private schools for fleecing parents besides resorting to other unfair trade practices.

For the past two years, a debate has been going on over regulation of private schools by the government as the institutions are accused of collecting hefty tuition fees besides other charges from the parents for the Covid-19 lockdown period.

The parents mostly complain against the top notch school for collecting all types of fees in violation of government orders. Under the guise of it, all private schools across the Valley are weighed in the same scale. I have been continuously highlighting the plight of parents who are in a way harassed by some top notch private schools. The schools are forcing the parents to clear the fees other than tuition fees in gross violation of the government orders. But there is another side of the story as well. All the schools do not have the policies and do not have the same approach towards the parents. The fact is that the situation is not the same with all the categories of the private schools. The locally managed and budget schools are at the verge of closure owing to the financial crunch faced by these schools during the last two years.

The main reason for this is the denial by the parents, particularly those working in the government sector, to clear the dues. The schools have an outstanding worth crores as the parents have not cleared their dues citing that physical classes were conducted during the lockdown period of play the victim of financial facing losses during the covid-19 lockdown period.

 

Ironically, most of the parents who are the defaulters in the schools are government employees who receive their salary every month irrespective of whatever the situation prevails in the Valley. But the same parents deny tuition fees to the schools not to talk of the other fees demanded by these institutions. Any parent who runs a small business or works as a laborer can claim financial losses due to the ongoing covid-19 pandemic but the parents working in the government sector do not have any right to deny fees to the private schools.

But the parents whose kids are studying in locally managed or budget schools have started a new trend for the past two years now. The parents, mostly those working in the government sector, do not clear the tuition fees every month. At the time of annual examinations, the schools start playing different tactics to collect the fees from the parents. The schools either bar the students from appearing in Term-II examination or deny admit card of the Board examination to the students. Instead of clearing the dues, the parents make hue and cry and try to tarnish the image of these schools by playing victimhood. Unfortunately, not only the media but the society also gets carried away and we only pay heed to one side of the story. We never wake up our consciousness and try to listen to the other part of the story as well.

Adamant to clear the dues, the parents change the school of their kids and keep the outstanding amount of the previous school unpaid. The child starts his studies in a new school leaving the former school in quandary. The students are not asked to produce the discharge certificate by the new schools as the parents claim that their kid was entitled to get admission under Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009.

The question is we as a society come to the rescue of the parents but at the same time we forget that these private schools, be it a top notch school or a budget or economic schools, are also an asset for the society. We as a society while finding relief for the parents should also think about the survival of the schools as well. The most important point in this is that we should never generalize the whole issue on