The battle between parents protesting the school fee hike in Khaitan Public School Ghaziabad, and the school authorities, escalated on Sunday when the Ghaziabad police lodged an FIR against four protesting parents. This came after distressed parents gathered outside the school on Saturday to express their resentment against the expulsion of as many as 35 students who were issued Transfer Certificates (TCs) for non-payment of dues.
The parents were booked after the school’s administrative officer filed a complaint against them for locking the school gates, thereby confining school staff inside the premises.
Consequently, an FIR was registered under sections 147 (rioting), 342 (wrongful confinement), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
“This Is Loot”
It was on Saturday afternoon that almost 200 parents stood outside the school complex with posters in their hands, shouting slogans against the school management and locking all the exit gates of the school.
Despite action being taken against them on Sunday, parents maintain that they will protest against the school until the district authorities step in to revoke the TCs.
“We agreed to pay last year’s fee but the school refused to pay heed. Till the state committee, which is looking into the matter, submits its report, the school should not have taken an extreme step. But they did. That’s why we decided to take a step and block the gates. We will continue to protest,” Neeraj, a parent and a member of the All India Parents Association of Uttar Pradesh, tells The Quint.
“The tuition fee has been hiked by 51 percent. What the school has essentially done is to club the annual fee with the tuition fee. There wasn’t any justification provided for the hike,” Shivani Jain, a parent, tells us. “The management is acting like a monarch,” Neeraj adds. “Issuing TCs to students between class 1 and 8 violates the Right to Education Act of 2009. We have approached district authorities about the same. The matter is under consideration with the state committee and the school management cannot take a decision on its own,” he tells The Quint.
“This is a pressure tactic by the school to pressure the parents to deposit the hiked fee. It is demanded that the TCs be revoked till the state committee comes out with a decision on fee hike,” another parent concurred.
Forget Revoking, School Planning to Issue More TCs
While parents asserted that the move puts the future of their children at risk, the school maintains its stance, saying that parents were given enough notice about the hike.
“When we put out the new fee structure in September, there weren’t any objections. We even issued notices to parents. Now, they have started raising objections. Almost 96 percent of parents have paid the fee. It’s the remaining 4 percent that is creating a ruckus,” Geeta Varshney, the school principal, said.
Varshney added that not only will the school not revoke the TCs, but it is planning to issue them to 30 other students.
Asked about the school’s decision to consider revoking the expulsions, Varshney told The Times of India:
The TCs are effective from the time they are issued. Of course, this will hamper the children’s studies but the parents should have thought of that before.
Can the Government Mediate?
While both the school authorities and the parents held a meeting on Saturday which was moderated by the Sahibabad police, parents are now demanding an urgent hearing of the matter, asking for the involvement of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. “We met with the Superintendent of Police to talk about the issue. We have approached Adityanath to look into the matter as well. We are sure they will step in,” Sandeep Gupta, a parent, tells The Quint.
Meanwhile, Assistant Superintendent of Police Anoop Singh assured parents of a meeting before schools open after summer vacations on 3 July.
Parents and schools across the country have been at loggerheads over fee hikes since the beginning of April this year. With some of the schools in the Delhi-NCR region hiking the fee by as much as 200%, the issue has escalated to a point where none of the stakeholders are agreeing to budge from their stance. Will the government authorities, both at the state and central level, step in to save the day?
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