District Edu Dept issues notice to DPS over rustication of students

The district education department on Friday issued a notice to the Delhi Public School, Sector 132, to take back the rustication orders of 45 students over non-payments of fee or else the school will get derecognised by the board.

"We have received several complaints against the school regarding breach of the guidelines issued. The school has rusticated few students against non-payment of the fee. A notice has been issued regarding this. If the rustications are not taken back, we will derecognize the school" said a senior district education department officer.

Earlier this week, the school administration struck off names of around 60 students whose parents did not pay the fees for the 2016-17 session.

Following this, hundreds of aggrieved parents protested outside the school demanding roll back in fee hike. The parents were annoyed with the school's fee hike of almost 14 percent and annual charges levied by it.

Indira Kohli, Principal, Delhi Public School, said "The hike was justified due to the cost of implementing the seventh Pay Commission recommendations. We sent repeated requests through SMS and e-mails to the parents who had refused to pay fee for the entire academic session 2016-17. We are firm on our decision and will now make any exemption for adamant parents"

"The private schools aren't transparent in their functioning. We made an offer to discuss the fee structure and annual charges which were overturned by the school. There must be transparency in the system and parents should be made aware of the functioning of the school" said one such parent, Shalini Sharma.

The district education department has earlier issued notices to bring transparency in the fee structure and directed them to display the fee structure over the display boards. The move was taken with an aim to make the parents aware of the detailed break-up of school fees under various heads.

"We welcome the move as it is in the favor of the parents and will stop the school from taking extra hidden charges. We can cross-check and verify the same from the notice board" said Neha Devgan, a parent.

Fee hike in the new academic session is very common in private schools. The schools charge extra money from the parents in the name of maintenance and other necessities.

The parents pave with heavy increment in fees which the school details under various heads such as housekeeping, electricity, generator, drinking water, insurance of staff, students, and seminars.