PIONEER NEWS SERVICE | Dehradun
The education department has received over 80 complaints from parents against private schools through the newly launched complaints helpline, said the chief education officer, Dehradun, Vinod Kumar Dhaundiyal.
This helpline was launched in response to the directives from the Education minister Dhan Singh Rawat aimed at addressing the significant increase in fees along with other issues involving private schools. Following the launch of the helpline, the education department in Dehradun has been monitoring the complaints coming from aggrieved parents.
Dhaundiyal stated that a total of 87 complaints have been reported through the helpline thus far. “The common complaints concerning the private schools include excessive fee hikes and pressure on parents to purchase books from specific bookstores. However, most of them are about the fee hike,” he added.
Asked what they planned to do following the receipt of the complaints, he said that they have already begun summoning specific schools to discuss the issues raised in the complaints. “Many schools when questioned said they have hiked the fees by 10 per cent in line with the guidelines issued. Some complaints are about private schools imposing extra charges for services such as computer classes. We directed them to provide a transparent fee structure and a detailed account of any additional charges to the parents to avoid any misunderstanding in future,” he said.
He further noted that the education department could hardly do anything more than sending advisories or organising meetings between the schools and the parents. “We cannot go beyond the departmental purview,” he said, adding that lack of clarity in the fee structure is what is resulting in mounting complaints against private schools.
