School asked to pay Rs 5 K to each parent over fee hike

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: Divisional Fees Regulatory Committee (DFRC) directed the Fransalian School Of Excellence (FSE)-CBSE to pay Rs 5,000 to each parent for increasing tuition fees illegally.

It may be noted that FSE raised the fees by 40 to 50 per cent fees from the academic year 2023-24 by misguiding the parents. These parents made an appeal to the DFRC against the fee hike. Terming the fee hike as illegal, the committee asked the school to pay Rs 5,000 to each parent as a fine.

The CBSE school raised the fees at the time of admissions by taking parents into confidence. However, the school misguided the parents with the fee hike for the year 2023.

As per the provisions in the Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Regulation of Fee) Act, 2011, the parents filed an appeal with DFRC president S G Deshmukh, member Rajkumar Kothari, secretary and divisional deputy director of education.

The parents agitated against fee hikes and school bag weight limits. Angry over this, the school administration sent the Transfer Certificate (TC) of five students to their home.

So, the parents filed a petition in the High Court bench which directed the school to re-admit the students. The court also instructed the committee to take a decision on a fee hike.

Meanwhile, terming the increase in the fees by the school as illegal, the panel directed the school to pay R 5,000 to each parent and fix the fees henceforth as per the provisions in Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Regulation of Fee) Act.