The Karnataka Primary and Secondary Education Department has served show cause notices to around 165 private schools in Bengaluru for not complying with a government order asking them not to hike fee for the upcoming academic year 2020-21. The notices were served to these schools on May 20.
The education department received a total of 829 complaints from parents from both Bengaluru Urban and Bengaluru Rural districts on their helpline number, according to a release.
The department has acted on these complaints and have sent notices to 165 of the schools against which complaints had been raised by parents. A total of 710 complaints against 116 schools were received from Bengaluru South, 113 complaints against 45 schools from Bengaluru North, and 6 complaints against 2 schools from Bengaluru Rural.
This is a total of 829 complaints against 163 schools. The officials have disposed off only 370 complaints, and the rest are pending, according to a release from the education department.
All these schools in Bengaluru Urban (North and South subdivisions) have been served notices from the Education department. This comes to a total of 161 schools.
The letter sent by the Commissioner of the Department of Public Instruction, KG Jagadeesha, refers to the order passed on April 24, in which the department requested schools not to implement a fee hike in the following year. The letter states that schools need to consider the prevailing pandemic, and not implement the yearly hike of 15% which private schools are usually entitled to make.
However, most private schools disregarded the order and continued to harass parents to pay the hiked fee, even though parents raised the issue with the school authorities.
The letter states, “You have not obeyed a government order despite a reminder, which is an outrageous indifference on your part. Tell us why we should not take disciplinary action against your school.”
TNM had previously reported that parents of wards who were admitted in various private schools in the city were upset about their schools not responding to queries about doing away with the fee hike. The Education department subsequently set up a helpline to take complaints from parents who were aggrieved by this.
Vibgyor High, a prominent school in the city has also received a show-cause notice from the Education Commissioner. When the controversy first surfaced, parents of children studying at this school requested that the hike be taken back, but that never materialised.