A report submitted by the education department over a re-admission fees row between a parent and the Ecole Mondiale World School in Juhu suggested that the school should return the additional fees of Rs 10 lakh to the parent. The department had initiated a probe in the matter after a parent complained that she was asked to shell out an additional Rs 10 lakh for re-admitting her children to the same school. Earlier this month,Bandra resident Sheetal Mehta had alleged that the school had expelled her children over an 18-day delay in fee payment. Mehta said the school forced her to re-admit her children and pay Rs 10 lakh extra. Till last year,Mehta used to pay around Rs 20 lakh towards the school fees of her two children. However,she had to pay an additional Rs 10 lakh - about Rs 3.8 lakh more due to a revision in the fees,and Rs 6.5 lakh towards the one-time admission fees and application form for re-admitting her wards. After the matter came to light,School Education Minister Rajendra Darda,on December 10,asked the deputy director of school education to probe the matter and submit a report. Every child has a right to education and the school cannot expel a child over the issue of late fee payment. The matter is being probed and necessary action would be taken if we find that the school is at fault. said Darda. The report submitted by the education department stated that the school is at fault as the re-admission was not necessary and so the management should return the additional Rs 10 lakh they had charged. We were asked to probe the matter,following which we visited the school and checked all the documents pertaining to the case. We also spoke to the school authorities and the parent. The school claimed that it had sent reminders to the parent over the payment of fees. However,during the probe,we found an important thing that is the school did not issue any official letter to the parent informing her about the expulsion of the two students, said P Pawar,education inspector (west zone). Pawar added,In our report we have suggested that the school should return the extra amount they had charged towards re-admission. They should have considered the case of the two students and re-admission was not necessary. And if it is their rule to expel students over late payment of fees then they should have issued an official letter of expulsion to the parent,which they did not. We are now awaiting the instructions from the school education minister. The school authorities,however,insist that a proper procedure was followed. Insisting that the students were not expelled,principal Finbarr O Regan,through an email,said the names of the two students were removed from the registers due to non-payment of fees despite enough reminders. We did not contact the family because there had been no communication with the school following the sending of the invoice in April. The invoices were sent on April 13 and 14 and reminders were sent at intervals between April 29 and May 26. When the parent approached us on August 1,with her children,she was informed about the need to make a new application, said ORegan. He added,The students were not expelled from the school. Not having received payment of fees for this academic year,their names were removed from the registers,the assumption being that they were not returning.
