Guardians protest over fee hike of renowned city school
Kolkata: A group of guardians of a well-known South Kolkata school in Gariahat rallied from Ekdalia Crossing to the school at Mandevilla Gardens on Friday afternoon to protest against the recently announced fee hike to be implemented from April.
A team from the guardians' forum later met the principal and members of the school's governing body and proposed that the 13 per cent fee increment should be introduced in two phases.
"The school authorities increase the fees more or less by 10 per cent every year. This time the increase has been 23 per cent. So the effective increase stands at 13 per cent. We have proposed that a one-time increase of this 13 per cent extra be collected in two phases — at the rate of 7 per cent in the next fiscal (starting from April) and 6 per cent in the year following this," said a member of the guardians' forum.
"The principal gave us a patient hearing and said she will discuss our proposal in the proper forum. If the school authorities maintain the same stand, then we will have to continue our agitation," another forum member added.
The principal has already come out with a detailed notice stating the reasons for the fee hike that maintained that the school has been compelled to implement the increase to pay its members of staff at a rate not lower than the state government's pay structure as per ROPA (Revision of Pay and Allowance) Rules 2019.
It has been declared that parents having two or more children studying in South Point School and/or South Point High School may get a rebate of 10 per cent on the tuition fees for the youngest child studying in either SPS or SPHS.
However, such rebate will be available to them only for the academic year 2020-21 and for the subsequent years, they will have to pay the full amount of applicable fees.