A school facing a financial crisis has raised Rs 6.5 lakh in just two days after a teacher requested for help on Twitter. Elite English High School situated in Neelasandra has children from economically weaker sections of society attending the school. Parents of the children have not been able to pay fees regularly due to which the school has struggled to release staff salaries.
The school’s 14 employees have not been paid since June last year.
On January 17, Teach For India fellow Shreyasi Rao, who works at the school, posted a series of tweets urging people to help. She wrote, “My colleagues and I are trying to raise funds to cover about six months’ worth of pay for teachers and running costs to keep education free for all students. Amounts as little as Rs 100 could go a long way.”
Rao explained that parents of most students had lost their jobs and cannot afford to pay even Rs 5,000 for admission.
The tweets went viral on January 19 and the teachers have collected Rs 6.5 lakh.
Rao added that despite issues, teachers were working hard to ensure students don’t drop out. “We worked beyond school timings whenever these kids had access to smartphones,” she said.
Sakline Abbas, the principal of Elite English High School said this was the first time in 20 years that the school, was facing such a crisis. “We never faced difficulties before the pandemic Through the Milaap Fundraising platform, I am glad that we have support to sustain ourselves till June,” Abbas said.
Meanwhile, private school managements in Karnataka are gearing up to challenge in court the state government’s order mandating private schools to reduce tuition fees by 30 percent while abstaining from charging additional fees under any other heads. The state’s primary and secondary education minister, Suresh Kumar also ruled out any hike in tuition fees as schools will now follow the academic year 2019-20 fee structure. The order is applicable across all educational boards.
Source: Times of India
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