Notice Issued to Government-aided School in Delhi for collecting fees

The Directorate of Education (DoE) has given a show cause notice to the Kerala Education Society Senior Secondary School on Canning Road, Delhi for “Collecting different types of fees eg. Admission fee, subscription fee, computer fee, transport fee and donations.”  Being a government sponsored school it has to be free of cost to any student taking admission in the schools.

C Prathapan, the secretary of the school’s parent-teacher association (PTA) has registered a complaint with the directorate, the speaker of the Delhi Assembly, Ram Niwas Goel, and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia. On receiving the complaint an investigation committee has been formed to look after the matter.

It was found by the DoE that the school authorities were collecting money from parents under different heads. The school didn’t give away receipts to the parents as well but Kerala Education Society had given away two receipts to this complaint in the month of February.

According to the show cause notice to the school it said, “The school has employed a large number of extra employees, over and above the sanctioned strength, thus causing artificial burden on the financial health of the school which ultimately results in fleecing of money from the parents.”

Sums of Rs. 29,125 and Rs. 23,125 were given to the school and their receipts were issued on 25 and 27 February 2015. There were quite a few complaints registered by various parents that were all dated on February 27, to the deputy director of education of the central and New Delhi District. They said that the school management has charged them money for admissions, though the amount mentioned by them differed.

The members of PTA also gathered around Jantar Mantar to protest against the steps taken by the school authorities which forced them to pay money for admitting their children.