Coimbatore private schools stop students with pending fees

Coimbatore private schools stop students with pending fees

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Coimbatore:06.09.2021

District chief education officer (CEO) N Geetha said she had been receiving complaints from parents about private schools preventing their wards from attending physical classes, as they have failed to settle the pending fees.

“I have received seven such complaints in person on the first day of school reopening. My office continues to receive such complaints. We have asked the schools not to disallow the students from attending the classes,” she said.

Geetha has also warned of action against the schools if she were to receive written complaints from parents, as the state government had asked the schools not to prevent students from attending the classes.

A senior official with the CEO office said while some cases were genuine, there were also deliberate attempts by parents not to pay the fees.

Pointing out that a parent, who had enrolled three daughters to a private school, hadn’t paid their fees last year, the officer said while the former was ready to pay the first term fee for the current academic year, he was reluctant to pay the pending fees.

“I had lost my job during the pandemic last year. While I have managed to get back to work, it will take time to set my finances right. I can pay the first term fees of this academic year, but I can’t afford to pay the pending fees,” said the parent who approached the CEO office seeking intervention.

The official said the school management was not ready to forgo the pending fees of all the three children. “We too find it unfair on our part to ask the schools to make unreasonable fee waivers.”

Academicians said the issue was mostly faced by the schools on the outskirts of the city, while the known ones in the city with a higher fee structure were able to collect the fees, as they were preferred by the parents who could afford the fees.

Admission to the first category of schools, they said, depended on the quality teachers. “To retain teachers, the schools need to pay them more. Since the fees collected from the students is the main source of their revenue, the schools are insisting on payment of pending fees.”

D C Elangovan, general secretary, Federation of Associations of Private Schools in Tamil Nadu, said the high court had a few months ago asked the schools not to insist on fees from parents, who were facing financial issues.