Reshma Ravishanker (Bengaluru)
Even as the new academic year 2021-22 commenced from July 1 with online education decreed compulsory for all of Karnataka’s 76,800 schools including 48,393 government primary-secondaries, the stalemate over fees payable to private schools for 2020-21 and the new academic year is unresolved.
In February, several private schools associations filed writ petitions in the Karnataka high court contesting the constitutional validity of a January 29 state government directive to all private schools —including schools affiliated with pan-India CBSE and CISCE exam boards — statewide to collect only 70 percent of tuition (and no other) fees for the academic year ended April 2021.
This directive was issued after parents’ associations contended that private schools’ fees should be reduced because online classes are of shorter duration and schools are not providing co-curricular and sports education. Moreover, parents claim they have suffered loss of income and often employment during the pandemic year.
On June 29, the state government made a plea to the Karnataka high court seeking permission to constitute a panel headed by a retired high court judge to determine fees for all categories of private schools in the state for the new academic year 2021-22, and to “grant it liberty” to initiate action against private schools disregarding the January 29 fees restriction order.
Responding, private schools associations’ counsel argued before a single judge bench that the state government lacks legal authority to regulate fees of unaided private schools and highlighted that, while on one hand, the government had decreed a reduced fee it had simultaneously directed all private school managements to pay full salaries to teachers and staff. After hearing both parties, Justice Magadum adjourned the hearing to July 22.
With a second Covid-19 pandemic wave having pushed the state into a 46-day industry and business lockdown in May-June, parents associations have upped their ante and demanded that the state government applies the 70 percent of tuition-feeonly order to the new academic year as well, and constitute a school fees adjudication committee.
“Most extra-curricular and sports activities have been halted since classes went online and schools have saved on these expenses. Private school managements can meet their teachers and staff wage bill by collecting 70 percent of annual fees. We demand that the state government immediately constitute a fees fixation committee headed by a retired high court judge to resolve this issue,” says B.N.Yogananda, general secretary, RTE Students & Parents Association (RTE-STUPA).
On the other hand, spokespersons of the state’s 21,000 private unaided schools say that 30-40 percent of parents have not paid their children’s fees for the past year 2020-21, and fees arrears owing to private schools have accumulated to a massive Rs.4,000-5,000 crore. They contend that private schools, especially affordable budget private schools (BPS), are on the brink of financial bankruptcy with most unable to pay teachers and staff. They warn that over 3,000 BPS will have to shut down permanently if the restrictive 70 percent tuition fee order is extended to 2021-22.
“Taking advantage of the pandemic, the government first stopped all private schools from raising annual fees by the conventional 10-15 percent. Next in January 2021, it issued the 70 percent tuition fees directive applicable to 2020-21. Now it wants to set up a fees fixation committee to interfere with parent-management contracts. More than 30 percent of parents have not paid even the reduced 70 percent tuition fees due for 2020-21. In such a situation how can private school managements afford to provide online education and pay teachers and staff?” queries D.Shashi Kumar, general secretary of the Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka (KAMS, estb.1989), which has a membership of 3,900 mainly budget private schools.
Shashi Kumar: precarious condition
According to Kumar, in a landmark judgement delivered on May 3 in Indian School Jodhpur & Ors. vs. State Government of Rajasthan, the Supreme Court struck down a similar private schools fees reduction order of the Rajasthan state government, ruling that the right to determine fees payable by students is vested in every school’s “management alone” and that the government had no right to vary the terms of contracts voluntarily concluded between parents and school managements. Against the backdrop of learned judges of the Supreme and high courts countrywide, hitherto overly influenced by apex court judgements deploring “commercialisation of education” of the past becoming belatedly aware of the importance of private and budget private schools which educate 119 million children countrywide as also of the sanctity of contracts, the Karnataka government should perhaps focus on raising teaching-learning standards in its woefully rundown government schools, instead of pandering to its middle-class constituency to reduce the state’s 21,000 private unaided schools — many of them globally respected to government school level.