COVID-19: Several schools announce fee hike, add to woes of parents

While parents are waiting for school fee waiver during the lockdown due to COVID-19 situation in the country, several schools have announced a fee hike adding to their woes.

Parents have started an online petition to the HRD Ministry demanding a directive to schools for not implementing fee hike this academic session at least till schools reopen.

While the Gujarat government had on Monday announced that private schools will not hike fees for an year, the West Bengal government had appealed schools to refrain from hiking fees. However, no clear instructions have been issued on fee hike in Delhi-NCR.

"With no information when normalcy will return, when we could head back to our respective workplace is the question that remains unanswered and here, I receive an intimation from the school regarding the hike in fee. I was baffled that how would I be able to cope up? I am anxious to know about the school fee hike and transport fee hike which the school says is to meet the cost demands for the academic year 2020-21," said Pivit Joshi, whose son studies in a prominent school in Noida. He did not wish to identify the name of school.

Jagriti Shukla, a parent in Gurgaon, said, "We understand the schools' concern that they need to pay salaries and cannot waive fees but at least hike can be avoided at such crucial time. Why the government has not passed any order in this regard?"