Private schools in Hyderabad still fleecing parents under different heads

Hyderabad: Even as the education department has prohibited collection of exorbitant admission fees, private schools are finding new ways to escape the law. As per GO-91 of the educational department, the admission fee should not exceed Rs 5,000 for new enrolments. But the school managements are collecting fee under different heads namely activity fee, teacher’s training corpus, children’s project corpus etc. Parents, who felt relieved after limiting of admission fees, now feel that the issue is back to square one.

Until last year, top schools used to collect donations between Rs 40,000 to over a lakh rupees per head for new admissions in addition to the annual tuition fee.
Following complains by parents and various groups regarding gross violations of this rule by school managements, the education department has issued a circular to all institutions, stating in no uncertain terms that rules must be obeyed. This has forced private school managements to find other ways to fleece parents.

According to a parent, following limitation of admission fees at Rs 5000, schools are now collecting remaining sums under different heads. He revealed that one school is collecting Rs 1 lakh from new parents. The admission fee is Rs 5,000, but the rest of the donation amount of Rs 95,000 is being collected as well under different heads.