Pvt schools8217; fees zoom

MUMBAI, August 24: The Fifth Pay Commission is finally making its presence felt. Even as teachers prepare to take a heavier pay-packet ho...

MUMBAI, August 24: The Fifth Pay Commission is finally making its presence felt. Even as teachers prepare to take a heavier pay-packet home, private, unaided schools across the city are planning to hike their fees 8212; by nearly double in several cases 8212; to shoulder the burden of the revised pay scales.

Schools under the Bombay Cambridge group have, in fact, already hiked the fees by Rs 150, for all sections. Says Nitya Ramaswamy, principal of Dr S Radhakrishnan Vidyalay under the Bombay Cambridge group: 8220;For the primary section, for instance, the fees have been hiked by Rs 150 from the earlier Rs 250. We don8217;t have a choice.8221;

New Era School at Nana Chowk has also applied for a fee hike, by at least double, according to Principal Gool Ghadiali. 8220;We have submitted the proposal to the state government,8221; she says.

At Pandey Girls High School Mumbai Central, principal Filloo Commissariat says the school will be submitting a proposal to double its fees, for the secondary section. 8220;We already appliedfor a hike in the primary section six months ago,8221; she adds. Explaining the need for the hike, Commissariat says, for instance, in the secondary section, the teachers8217; salaries will go up from Rs 11 lakh a year to Rs 18 lakh. Total expenditure will go up by nearly 60 per cent, she says. Further, the arrears from 1996, will amount to Rs 6-9 lakh in each of three instalments, Commissariat says.

The Alexandra Girls8217; English Institution at Fort will also be submitting a proposal to nearly double its fees, Principal Freny Mehta told Express Newsline.

More than the revised scales, it is the arrears that are causing a problem for various schools. As B P Sheth, vice-president of the Unaided Schools8217; Forum says, though the increased fees will compensate for the revised pay scales, they will not make up for the arrears. School managements will have to work out ways to raise additional resources.

To deal with fee hike proposals in general, the state Education Department had issued a Government ResolutionGR dated July 22, 1999, says A R Motlekar, president of the Mumbai Association of Heads of Secondary Schools. Under this, the final decision on a hike will be taken by a Task Force Committee, headed by the deputy director of education of each region. The hike should also have the PTA8217;s approval.

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The GR had also introduced certain welcome changes for unaided schools 8212; each fee hike is valid for three years, but in a modification, the fees will automatically increase by 10 per cent in the second year, and in the third year, by 20 per cent. Extra teachers will also be allowed for judo, computers, dance, music, among other things, depending on the workload, Motlekar explains.

Still, unaided schools do not think this is enough since the teacher-per-class ratio inevitably works out to be much higher than that prescribed by the government. However, the approved hike accounts for the prescribed ratio only.

In fact, the Unaided Schools8217; Forum had submitted a memorandum to the Education Department in March,recommending that there should be separate norms for these schools with regard to finalising the fee structure.

However, J M Abhyankar, deputy secretary, School Education, says that when a school has appointed more teachers, the deputy director will consider that as well, if the PTA8217;s sanction is obtained. Further, the GR has regularised the rules regarding the fee structure, he adds.