– Mita Mukherjee

West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari on Monday said that there is a need to establish government control on regulating private school fees.

He appealed to private institutions to not do anything that embarrasses the government and also asked such schools to ensure that students coming from ordinary families do not face any problem to educate their wards in those institutions.

“There is an appeal to private educational institutions. The schools are collecting various fees — tuition, semester. There should be government control to regulate these fees. You (schools) should now start thinking about this matter. Please do not do anything that embarrasses the government,” the chief minister said.

He was addressing a programme organised by the state government in Kolkata to felicitate students from the state boards and the Delhi-based Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations and CBSE who have performed well in the Class X and Class XII board examinations.

The erstwhile Trinamool Congress government on a number of occasions had initiated drives to determine fees structure in private schools. The Trinamool government had announced a decision to formulate West Bengal Private School Regulatory Bill in 2022 to check exorbitant fees and collection of donations.

There was a proposal that the schools would have to fix their fees according to the infrastructure facilities available at the institutions and the government would seek financial statements after every three to five years to see whether the infrastructure details were in accordance with the fees collected from students. But, parents continued to complain that no step was taken to check fee hikes by the schools.

The Left government too had made a similar move to regulate private school fees but the initiatives were not carried through.

The chief minister on Tuesday urged private schools to maintain proper standards at the institutions in respect of admission and evaluation of students.

“It is easy to get admission in private schools. It is even easier to be successful in exams and score high marks. Please be careful about admission and evaluation. Please see that assessment is done on basis of merit,” he said.

According to him, students from government schools were losing out to private schools because of lack of fairness in the marking system at private institutions.

He said he would encourage private educational institutions but the government also intends to improve the quality of education and facilities at government schools.

He said the government has reintroduced the Vivekananda Merit Scholarship for underprivileged students which will be offered to students irrespective of their caste, religion and political affiliation.

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