Adityanath govt readies Bill to regulate school fees

The Uttar Pradesh cabinet headed by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath today dicussed a draft bill that aims to check arbitrary fee hikes imposed by private schools and provide relief to students, a minister said.

The state cabinet discussed a draft of the proposed Uttar Pradesh self-financed independent schools (Regulation of Fees) Bill, 2018, aimed at checking arbitrary fee structures, Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma said.

The proposed bill will apply to all private schools charging Rs 20,000 in fees annually including the minority institutions and will come into force from the academic session 2018-2019, he said.

"The aim is that there should not be any capitation fee and that the admission fee is not charged every year and the school uniforms are not changed on annual basis," he said.

It also aims at curbing the tendency of some private schools to charge hefty fees from students and has a provision of penalty of Rs one lakh for flouting the provisions for the first time, Rs five lakhs for the second and de-recognition in case the school repeats the offence for the third time, he said.

The schools will not be able to charge the fees of one or two years in one go, Sharma said. It also proposes banning schools from charging one time fees on annual basis, he added.