PUNE: Up to 1,483 private and unaided schools in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad will stop teaching online classes and other academic activities for three days starting Tuesday to protest the non-payment of fees by parents.
These schools, affiliated with the Federation of Maharashtra Private Unassisted Schools Association, have said that if the situation persists even after their protest, they will be forced to close schools for the rest of the year.
The federation is a coordinating body for private school associations in the district and the state with some 5,800 schools as members.
Rajendra Singh, president of the federation, said that the payment of fees has become increasingly irregular since the pandemic began and the subsequent shutdown.
“We conducted a survey of our affiliated schools and found that 30% of parents have paid fees, about 12% are in real financial trouble, and the rest are refusing to pay fees even though they don’t face seemingly insurmountable financial hardship. These parents refuse to show any documents and do not respond to calls when the school authorities contact them, “he added.
Singh said that it was not possible to carry out activities and pay teachers their salaries with only 30% of the fees and therefore they had made this decision.
“We have already told our members not to increase rates for this year. We also told them not to charge fees for other facilities like annual meetings, gymkhana, meals, transportation and others. We have also told them to give parents the ability to pay monthly or quarterly fees. Despite all this, the parents refuse to pay. We have our own expenses and we do not receive any subsidies from the government, ”Singh said.
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