‘Stop the loot’: Telangana parents take to sticker campaign to protest against school fee hike

Less than a month after the Hyderabad Schools Parents Association(HSPA) launched the ‘postcard campaign’ protest against the school fee hike, the association intensified the demonstration by starting a sticker campaign on Saturday.

Several parents gathered at Panjagutta Cross Roads near Hyderabad Central demanding that Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao look into the matter of school fee hike.

“We have been trying various campaigns so that the Chief Minister will address the issue. The schools have hiked the fee by 30% now, making it near impossible for parents to afford quality education for their children. This loot needs to stop,” said Ashish Naredi, from the HSPA.

In January, the Telangana government announced that it would bring in a new GO to regulate fees in private schools after examining the draft rules framed by the Director of School Education.

However, on March this year, KCR said that he wanted a fresh report, and constituted a new committee to look into the school fee hike.

A committee headed by Prof T Tirupati Rao, former vice-chancellor of Osmania University and with G Kishan, Commissioner and Director of School Education as the convener, had, however, failed to submit the report on the constitution of the District Fee Regulation Committees (DFRCs), which was due on April 20 and asked for extension till May 15. It was after the first deadline was missed that the parents launched the protest.  

“Now they have again failed to submit the report in May. This issue is not being taken seriously due to which all the parents who have to pay a huge amount as school fee are suffering. We are saying at least submit the report,” Ashish added.

With another deadline missed, parents have once again taken to the streets of Hyderabad. Standing at the Panjagutta signal, parents stick notes on vehicles when they stop at the light, hoping to raise awareness about their plight.

The stickers read, “CM sir please, regulate school fees” and “CM sir please, stop the #SchoolFeeLoot”.

“We are not disturbing the traffic here. We are not even shouting slogans. The moment the traffic signal is red, we go ask people to support our cause and they then let us paste the stickers on their vehicles. Only after their approval do we paste the stickers. However, the police have been saying this is not allowed and we cannot protest, as it is a VIP road and close to the CM camp office,” Ashish said.

So far HSPA has managed to paste nearly 3000 stickers on different vehicles at Panjagutta.

“Based on the number of stickers we have pasted, I would say nearly 3000 people support our cause,” he added.

Last month, the association sent around 2000 postcards to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and about 100 postcards to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to draw their attention towards the issue.

“We hope that the CM takes note. All of HSPA’s activities are conducted by parents, who take leave from office or from their business. If parents are willing to sacrifice their pay to repeatedly organise one activity after another, then the grievance has to be serious. We hope the CM responds to the repeated exhortation of his state’s parents,” said one of the member of HSPA.

Telangana CM is going to be receiving thousands of postcards, that too from parents

As govt turns blind eye to school fee hike, Hyderabad parents’ group to launch new campaign