In view of the prevailing outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions across the country have remained shut since mid-March.
While the government of Assam had directed all educational institutes to waive 50% of their monthly school/college fees for the month of April, many schools have failed to inform students/parents of the same. Further, schools are continuing to charge miscellaneous fees like meal charges and transportation charges.
G Plus had earlier published an article highlighting the plights of students and their parents about fee hike in certain schools and non-waiver of miscellaneous fees such as transportation and laboratory charges in other schools.
The article had highlighted that Axel Public School was earlier charging full amount for transportation fees in spite of the children not availing transportation due to lockdown. The school issued a fresh notice on May 15 stating, “Parents will now only pay 50% of the transport fees for the month of April and 75% of the transport fees from May 2020 onwards until school reopens.”
Further, the article published on G Plus highlighted that Delhi Public School Khanapara had hiked its tuition fees by Rs 1,800 per quarter despite clear instruction from the state government that there cannot be any increase in school fees due to the ongoing pandemic.
On May 16, DPS Khanapara announced it was rolling back the increased tuition fees. “The increased tuition fees have been rolled back to that of last year’s i.e., 2019-20 for the pandemic period,” stated the announcement.
The nationwide lockdown has impacted all citizens immensely; students have been thrust into a state of dilemma. For students who were appearing for their 10th and 12th board examinations, things came to an abrupt halt. Many are yet to finish with all their papers.
To cope with the circumstances and with an aim to keep students connected to academics, schools are conducting online classes. However, a majority of Guwahatians feel that these classes are not proving beneficial for the students. There are fears among people that online teaching and learning process is giving a free pass to the educational institutes for charging higher fees by showing off their e-learning systems.
