Parents feel that the new draft of the bill is undemocratic as it has no scope for their representation. Further they allege that the bill is an attempt to legalise the coercive nature of private schools in terms of imposing fee hikes.
The Fee Regulation Bill has irked the parents of children attending schools in Ghaziabad. They say that the bill is merely an eyewash and an attempt to legalise the coercive nature of private schools in terms of imposing fee hikes. The fact that the state department of secondary education is repeatedly changing the draft copy of the bill uploaded on its website, has both appalled and angered the parent fraternity.
They also allege that the new draft has no provision of parent representation.
“The previous draft had a provision for nominating the president of any parent teacher association from the zone as a member of the zonal fee regulatory committee. But the new draft has no such provisions,” said Shivani Jain, president of All School Parents Association.
On December 8, the state department of secondary education had released the draft of Uttar Pradesh SeIf-Financed Independent Schools (Regulation of Fees) Bill, 2017 on its website. A second copy of the proposed bill was released on December 18. Parents also allege that the Hindi and English copies of the draft also had differences.
The parent fraternity have already flagged a host of issues like collection and usage of development charges, school’s freedom to decide fees, formation of fee committees at district level, etc.
Speaking to City Spidey, Mohit Singhal, a parent of a child studying at a Ghaziabad school said that the new draft is worse than the previous draft and retains all the problems of the previous one . “They have just changed the language and arrangement of the issues,” Singhal added.
The state secondary education department has invited comments and suggestions (on the Bill) which are to be submitted on or before 6 pm of December 22.
Speaking to City Spidey, Neeraj Bhatnagar, spokesperson of Ghaziabad Parents Association said that the deadlines should be extended. “We along with many other parent associations have prepared objections and suggestions according to the previous draft. Now we have to prepare the objections again after going through the new draft. What if the bill draft is changed again? What about the objections which have already been submitted?” Bhatnagar asked.
