-Mita Mukherjee

Owners of private schools in West Bengal have set up a new forum on Tuesday so that they can work jointly to find out solutions to certain common problems faced by them like financial constraints due to non- payment fees by students and measures need to be taken for reopening their institutions for conducting on-campus classes, the schools said.

The new body, West Bengal Private Schools’ Association held its first meeting on Tuesday which was attended by around 100 private schools. Another 100 schools have agreed to join the forum, Nabarun Dey, the owner and principal of Central Modern School and the secretary of the new body told EducationWorld.

The association will have members from schools affiliated with all the three boards operating in the state including the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations that affiliates the ICSE/ISC schools, Central Board of Secondary Education and the state controlled West Bengal Board of Secondary Education.

After the closure of educational institutions as a preventive measure against spread of Coronavirus in mid- March, guardians of a large section of students of the 600 odd private schools in the state had stopped paying the students’ fees.

Several schools had complained that they were finding it difficult to pay the salaries of their teachers as parents were not willing to pay the fees.

The individual schools had been trying to overcome the crisis in their own way. But this resulted into guardians’ agitations at several schools in the state.

According to Dey some of the problems faced by the schools were of the same nature and they were hopeful that it would be easier for the schools to find solution if they joined hands.

“An individual school may not be able to take the right decision which can dissatisfy its guardians. Such grievances among students and parents on one school can send a wrong message to parents of other private schools. We can avoid such problems if the schools work on a common platform,” Nabarun Dey said.

The association will initially deal with the fee issues and reopening of the schools. But later they will also work on other major issues like implementation of teaching three languages from Class I as recommended in the New Education Policy, Nabarun Dey said.

Similar associations of owners of private schools are functioning in states like Maharashtra and Karnataka for many years.