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Tuition Fees of Schools Shouldn’t be Exempted: Delhi High Court
ScooNews stands by the schools (aided or not) and feels that they deserve the (Tuition) fee for the simple reason that it covers the salary of the teachers and supporting staff along with the expenditure of arranging for the online courses.
Online Learning is not the only trending topic emerging from the education sector during the COVID-19 outbreak. Marking a month-long complete lockdown in India, April has extensively revealed decisions (bitter?) taken by various state governments (Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh) instructing the school administrations to not pressurise parents to pay fees during this difficult period. It’s notable that the students continue to take virtual classes in the meantime as the staff tirelessly creates a fully-fledged online education curriculum for them.
Now, this can turn into a famous debate on whether education is an Essential Commodity or not. However, considering the services (of the schools and teachers) are still running smoothly across the country, the regulation on prohibiting the fees seems a little futile.
On 17th April 2020, Directorate of Education (DoE), GNCTD, took certain hard-hitting decisions after bearing in mind the ways in which this pandemic has brought down the daily professions and occupations of people who’ve to pay their ward’s school fee.
“…some parents, are not in a position to pay the school fee of their wards at increased rates or even at existing rates if demanded on a quarterly basis in one go. Whereas, in such a situation, when all sections of society are contributing their best to help out those in need, it has been brought to the notice of the undersigned that some private unaided schools are not only violating the provisions of Delhi School Education Act and Rules 1973 and other guidelines issued by the Department in respect of the regulation of fee but also the provisions of above referred Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the Delhi Epidemic Diseases, COVID-19 Regulations, 2020 under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 for prevention and containment of COVID-19 presently in force,” the bench declared.
Subsequently, the DoE took stated:
- No fee, except Tuition fee, shall be charged from the parents, till further orders.
- Heads of the schools shall not demand and collect the Tuition fee from the parents/students on a quarterly basis. The fee shall be collected on a monthly basis only.
- Not to increase any fee in the academic session 2020-21 till further directions irrespective of the fact whether or not the school is running on the private land or the land allotted by DDA/Other Govt. Land Owning Agencies.
- The schools running on the land allotted by the DDA/Other Land Owning Agencies with the condition to seek approval of Director (Education) before any fee increase, shall collect the Tuition fee on the basis of last fee structure approved by Director (Education) or as per fee statement filed by them under 17(3) of DSEAR, 1973 during academic session 2015-16.
- Shall ensure to provide the access of Online Education/materials/classes to all students, without any discrimination, by providing them ID and Password immediately to get them online education facility.
- Heads of the schools shall, in no case, deny ID & Password to those students/parents for getting online access of educational facilities/classes/materials etc. to those students who are unable to pay the school fee due to financial crisis arising out of the closure of business activities in the ongoing lockdown condition.
- Managing Committee of the schools/Heads of the school shall not put extra financial burden by creating any new head of fee.
- Shall neither stop payment of monthly salary nor reduce the existing total emolument to the teaching and non-teaching staff of their schools in the name of non-availability of funds and arrange the funds in case of any shortfalls from the Society/Trust running the school.
Seconding the thoughts of DoE, the Delhi High Court, on 24th April 2020, mentioned that practices like stopping children from attending the everyday online classes just because their parents are not able to pay the fees on time and suddenly charging the fees from the students under various new heads are extremely inhuman.
Please note that, after receiving a writ petition by an advocate asking the court to eliminate even the Tuition Fee, the DoE invited our attention towards Rule 165 of Delhi Education Rules, 1973, which says that:
“All fees and contributions payable to a school by a student shall be payable by the 10th day of the month in which they are due: Provided that where the school remains closed on the 10th day to the month, such fees of contributions shall be-payable on the date following the 10th day on which the school reopens: Provided further that where the school remains closed for the long vacation, fees and contributions shall be payable within ten days from the day on which the school re-opens after the long vacation.”
On which, DoE replied:
“And whereas, it is also a fact that due to early closure of schools in the wake of COVID-19 and thereafter due to announcement of lockdown, the expenditure on co-curricular activities, sports activities, transportation, other development-related activities etc. is almost nil.
And whereas, as per the provisions, the tuition fee charged from the students covers all the expenditure to be incurred on salary, establishments and curricular activities.”
Now before publicizing its decision, the Delhi High Court bench made it clear that the petitioner (who appealed to waiver even the Tuition Fee) “does not claim to have any personal interest in this matter. The writ petition does not disclose the name of even a single parent, or student, who is aggrieved by the impugned Order dated 17th April 2020.” Calling the writ petition ex facie (a document's explicit terms are defective without further investigation) as it couldn’t prove if any parent or student was affected by the Order dated 17th April 2020, the bench specified the following malpractices of certain private schools in question:
- Increasing the school fee for the 2020-2021 academic session.
- Charging the fees under new heads.
- Not providing the ID and password of the online classes to students whose parents have either refused to pay the illegal increased fee or are facing a severe financial crisis.
- Collecting fees on a quarterly basis.
- Not paying the salaries to teaching and non-teaching staff.
The bench stated, “The situation, in which we are placed today, is one which the country – and, indeed, the world – has not witnessed earlier and, hopefully, would not have to witness again. It is incumbent, on every member of the populace, to be aware of the forbidding nature of the struggle, between man and microbe, in which each one of us is a participant, willing or unwilling. A joint, cohesive and concerted effort, alone, can result in success in this struggle. This would involve, in its wake, certain sacrifices, which, within the peripheries of the law, each one of us has to make. We cannot afford, in such a situation, to balk at inconveniences.”
In the notice, the bench can also be seen advocating for the schools and admiring the hard work they’re doing to train their staff that wasn’t comfortable conducting classes online until now. It said, “Judicial notice may be taken, of the painstaking efforts, made by schools and teachers, in providing education, and holding classes, through online platforms. The effort in physically teaching students, in a regular classroom, cannot even remotely be compared with the effort that the teacher has to expend, in providing online education. It is a matter of common knowledge that, in doing so, the effort required to be put in, by the teacher, and the strain to which the teacher subjects herself, or himself, is tremendous, and the efforts of teachers – referred to, often, as the noblest among all noble professions – require to be commended in the highest terms.”
ScooNews appreciates the decisions taken by Hon'ble Mr Justice C. Hari Shankar and Hon'ble Chief Justice D.N Patel and is of the opinion that to as long as the education is imparted to students online, the schools are very much open. It’s about time that ‘responsible’ parents stop treating these educational buildings as ‘closed’ during the lockdown. Asking for a complete relinquishment of the Tuition Fee would mean supporting the otherwise while their ward is actually attending his/her Science class on a Zoom call with the teacher and 50 other students. How just is that? In Delhi High Court’s words, it’s ‘fundamentally misconceived.’
So while, for some, there is no clarity on whether no fee will be charged during the period or it will have to be paid later, ScooNews strongly believes that parents, who’re in a position to pay the school fees right now, must come in the forefront and take the due action by paying the fee they’d have otherwise paid on time. By doing so, they’ll rightly prove to fellow parents and guardians that the schools are certainly entitled to charge tuition fees (at least) while they’re fully immersed in providing e-education to their children.
In the straight-forward words of the bench, what schools are managing to do during the COVID-19 outbreak is “no child’s play and involves the requirement of extensive infrastructural adjustments, including all incidental expenses in arranging access to online platforms, over which education could be provided.”
The bench further rightly added that the impugned Order, dated 17th April 2020, has correctly analysed the situation by distinguishing between the expenditure incurred by schools “on co-curricular activities, sports activities, transportation, other development-related activities, etc.” and expenditure incurred on “salary, establishments and curricular activities”.
ScooNews stands by the schools (aided or not) and feels that they deserve the (Tuition) fee for the simple reason that it covers the salary of the teachers and supporting staff along with the expenditure of arranging for the online courses. Having said this, we feel that it’d not be fair or kind for schools to force the parents who, at the moment, are distressed and cannot pay fees at all. Well…the segregation of who’s qualified to pay this fee and who’s not is another debate that we obviously cannot shift to another day. So, shoot your thoughts!
Image source: Pixabay