Court allows unaided schools to file fresh petition against government resolution

The issue of fee hike in private schools in Mumbai appears to be far from settled with an association of private unaided schools informing the Bombay High Court that it wished to file a fresh petition against the Maharashtra government's recent directive on a cap on school fees.

The Unaided Schools Forum was allowed by the division bench of justices D K Deshmukh and R P Sondurbaldota to withdraw their petition challenging a 2009 government resolution so as to enable them file a fresh one.

According to advocate Navroze Seervai the new fee hike policy went against the Bansal committee report, which was to have guided the issue.

Last year, the phenomenal hike in school fees triggered protests by parents and the state government barred school managements from hiking school fees unless cleared by a fee regulation committee. The Forum then moved the HC which stayed the order and directed the state to frame a fee policy.

A committee appointed under Kumud Bansal, IAS, recommended complete autonomy to private unaided schools to fix their fees.

The Bansal committee also suggested that the fee hike issue be discussed with the Parents Teachers Association, while allowing for collection reasonable surplus by the schools but prohibiting them from charging capitation fees.

The HC then asked the government to finalise its policy after referring the matter to experts, academics and parents. Earlier this month the state government issued a fresh government resolution (GR) that allowed schools to increase fees only once in three years, after discussions with the PTA, six months prior to the start of the academic year.

Even as it allowed reasonable surplus, it banned capitation fees. A formula was also arrived at arrived to work out an average figure for the school fees considering the number of sections, terms at school and number of students.