Aditi Maheshwari (Bhopal) The issue of fees payable by parents of children in private unaided schools during the pandemic close down which is convulsing the nation, has not bypassed the Hindi heartland state of Madhya Pradesh (pop.73 million), India’s largest state by land area (308,245 sq. km). On February 12, following a public march by agitated parents in Bhopal — the admin capital of the state — Kamal Vishwakarma, president of the city-based Private School Parent Association, presented a petition to Inder Singh Parmar, minister of education of the BJP government of Madhya Pradesh. The association’s petition alleged that despite numerous government notifications and high court orders, a large number of private schools are charging fees under numerous heads of expenditure. “This is unacceptable and in violation of a November 5, 2020 order passed by the Jabalpur bench of the Madhya Pradesh high court to the effect that private schools can levy only the tuition fee. This situation needs to be urgently remedied by the education ministry and state government,” says Vishwakarma. The court’s judgement of last November was based on its interpretation of the Madhya Pradesh Niji Vidyalaya (Private Schools Regulation) Act, 2017 enacted by the previous Congress government of the state which was dramatically ousted by the BJP in a legislative coup in March last year. “In order to strike a balance among stakeholders — who include students, parents, teachers and management — we direct that the students/parents shall pay tuition fee as per order dated September 1, 2020, which shall not be inclusive of library fee, computer fee, practical fee, examination fee (subject to examination not being held) and fee for programmes organised on occasions such as national festivals, sporting events and development fee,” ruled the court on November 5 in response to a writ petition filed by the Association of Unaided CBSE Schools of Madhya Pradesh. Simultaneously, the bench directed private schools to ensure that children are not deprived of online education and that teachers’ salaries are paid fully with arrears, if any, to be cleared by the end of the current academic year. Although the high court ruling has dismayed the vast majority of MP’s budget private schools in particular which are confronted with an unprecedented cash crunch, some private school leaders are sympathetic to the plight of parents whose incomes and businesses have been upended by the national lockdown of industry and business for over six-eight months following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic a year ago. “The Covid-19 pandemic was a surprise disaster and the nation has to stand by the middle and lower middle-class parents community. Private schools should draw on their savings to tide over the crisis and cut their expenditure while deploying tuition fees to meet the salaries expenses of teachers,” says Sandeep Gupta, vice principal of the Little Angels Convent High School, Bhopal. This point of view was accepted by Association of Unaided CBSE Schools which petitioned the government to ensure that the reduced tuition fee is paid immediately. But…
