Kathmandu, Nov 6,2014: The government has directed the District Education Offices to retrieve the exorbitant fees charged by the private schools by mid-November.
At an interaction programme organized by Education Journalist Group on Thursday in the capital city, Education Department’s Deputy Director Bal Bahadur Karki said the license of the private schools failing to comply with the directive would be recommended for scrap.
He said the government was committed to enforcing the Private School Operation Criteria and Directives.
Karki urged the private schools to display a notice for public to make the fee charge transparent as per the directive issued by the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA).
The Department’s demand for fee record from private schools comes at a time of a dispute which has reignited between the private schools and the student unions after the agreement reached on 19 July for refunding the random increment of fees was not implemented.
Education Ministry, Private and Boarding School Organization Nepal (PABSON), National Private and Boarding School Organization Nepal (NPABSON) and CPN-Maoist affiliate All Nepal National Independent Student Union (Revolutionary) had reached an agreement for refund of the fees hiked randomly. The private schools have been reluctant in implementing the agreement.
ANNISU-Revolutionary General Secretary Ratna Dhakal warned of using force if the private schools do not refund the money to the parents.
He said most of the private schools were found to have been charging exorbitant fees in violation of the Supreme Court order and fee classification limit.
However, NPABSON Chairman Karna Bahadur Shahi said the schools were running under the set criteria while adding that he would accept necessary action from Education Ministry in case of failure to comply with the regulations.
Shahi added that vandalism and agitations by the student unions would not be appropriate.
He further claimed that the schools were complying with the fee limit determined by the District Education Office as per the prevailing legal framework.
Parents Association Nepal Chairman Suprabhat Bhandari said it was sad the schools were not complying with the state rule and warned that the parents would too resort to agitation if the situation persisted.
Advocate Hari Poudel called the schools’ refusal to abide by the legal framework as being unruly. He said that the government’s failure to take action against such schools as unfortunate.
Source:RSS
