Burn Hall School Srinagar has become the first educational institution in Kashmir waiving off “school fee” for the academic session 2020 owing to the financial difficulties of the parents amid ongoing COVID19 pandemic.
The school fee includes library fee, laboratory fee, computer fee, exam fee and contingency fee. The school has only charged the tuition fee from February to October.
PRO, Burn Hall School, Feroz Mohidin said that the school provided a rebate of Rs 9000 to Rs 9500 for nine months to every student.
He said that around 2100 parents benefitted by it.
“It was a uniform rebate irrespective of whether the parent is a government employee or a business person,” he said.
In May, the government issued an order directing the private schools to charge only tuition fees on a monthly basis. However, most of the schools violated the order.
“We adhered to the government orders and did not collect the amount which comes under the school fee head like library fee, laboratory fee, computer fee, exam fee and contingency fee,” the PRO said.
He said the aggregate amount waived off was around Rs 2 crore.
“The government had directed not to collect any other fee other than tuition fee for COVID19 lockdown period but we gave a rebate to parents from February,” he said.
About the transport fee, the school PRO said there was no clarity from the government for collecting transport fee from parents for the lockdown period.
“The issue is pending as of now and we are waiting for the government order in this regard,” he said.
The government in May had stated that the decision regarding collection of transport fee would be taken separately in the coming months. However, the government is still indecisive about it which has left the parents and school authorities in a dilemma.
The parents complain that most of the private schools have already collected either 50 percent or full transport fee from parents citing expenditures on salary of drivers and conductors besides maintenance of the buses.