District Education Offices in Kathmandu Valley are all set to monitor private schools to ensure that they don’t fleece students and parents by charging exorbitant fees, from tomorrow.

Last year, the Supreme Court had directed private schools against increasing their tuition fees and selling textbooks on the premises of the school.

Likewise, the Central Fee Fixation and Monitoring Committee, a powerful government committee, had also directed schools to follow last year’s fee structure.

However, defying the government’s recently issued directives to put an end to their unscrupulous practices, private schools continue to fleece students under various titles.

The Fee Fixation and Monitoring committee will begin monitoring private schools from tomorrow , said Baikuntha Aryal, District Education Officer (DEO), Kathmandu, today.

He said the Department of Education had directed that the monitoring of private schools be expedited after receiving complaints from guardians.

Mankaji Shrestha, DEO, Lalitpur district, said that he had mobilised his office team to monitor private schools randomly today.

He, however, denied to name the schools that would be monitored.

Likewise, Shankar Gautam, DEO, Bhaktapur district, said he has also begun monitoring private schools in the district.

As the authorities have not been actively monitoring schools, the guardians association and other stakeholders have been inspecting schools on their own to check irregularities.

Suprabhat Bhandari, president, Guardians Association Nepal said the government had turned a deaf ear to their demands to take action against those schools that were fleecing parents in the name of quality education and inflation.

source: the himalayan times,22 april 2013