Bala Vidya Mandir takes back dual fees structure; parents, alumni and teachers continue protest

Even as parents and teachers gathered in front of the CBSE-affiliated school, Bala Vidya Mandir(BVM), Adyar in Chennai on Thursday demanding the re-instatement of the school’s top officials, the school’s new Principal announced the implementation of a uniform fee structure for all its students. S Sujata, the new Principal said in a press meet that services of former Principal of BVM, Srinivasa Raghavan had not been terminated but he had been transferred to BVM Global School, Bollineni Hillside. She said that the services of SS Nathan, formerly the CEO of BVM had been terminated stating that he would have to sort out issues with the school’s management.  She also said the management committee of the school "regrets that false allegations that have been made and misstatements that have been levelled against the school and management, by those, who have sought to tarnish the reputation of the school which have been painstakingly built up over 60 years." On this note, S Sujata accused one of the parents, who was actively campaigning against the dual fee structure, of starting a "vicious campaign".Addressing rumours of teachers being removed following protests in the last week, Sujata said that the school had not terminated the HODs and Vice-Principal from their positions. Earlier, reports said that nine HODs had been expelled from the school.  BVM also announced  that the school management has agreed upon implementing only one single curriculum for all its students.  This comes in the wake of protests from parents and the teaching body over a dual fee structure programme in the Adyar campus where in a higher fee programme with access to 59 educational activities was provided as an option. "It has not been and will never be our intention to distinguish between students at the school," Sujata said.  "The school will have only one uniform fee for each and every child," she added.   A new School Management Committee(SMC) has been reconstituted in which S Sujata will be the Member Secretary and others on the committee will include CS Ram. Managing Trustee Ramanaprasad will no longer be a part of the SMC, said Sujata.The school management also said that a committee will be set up to discuss with the parents the issues they have raised. Parents and teachers gathered outside Bala Vidya Mandir, Adyar  Many parents remained outside the campus along with 102 teachers of the school. Though the school campus wore a deserted look, the Principal informed media that 400 students and 30 teachers were currently on campus as school had reopened from today.