Tuition fees of institutional schools of Kathmandu have been hiked by 22 per cent. A meeting of the District Fee Fixation and Monitoring Committee today took a decision to this effect.

As per the Education Act, a school needs to get prior approval from government authorities before hike tuition fees and charges under other headings. Any school hiking fees without government permission needs to return the amount to students/ guardians if it has already collected.

Some few schools have submitted their fees proposal to the District Education Office. A proposal submitted by the Private and Boarding Schools Organisation Nepal had sought to hike tuition fees by 60 per cent. Parents and guardians have objected to the proposal.

With today’s decision, the institutional schools, however, cannot hike fees by more than 22 per cent.

Representatives of PABSON, NPABSAN, Guardians Association of Nepal and other concerned were present in the meeting today.

“After the fees hike, the tuition fees for ‘C’ grade school for primary level is Rs 1,342, lower secondary level is Rs 1,525 and secondary level is Rs 2,074,” said Bal Krishna Ranjit, District Education Office, Kathmandu.

Tuition fees of institutional schools had not been hiked for the last three years. But many schools had been found to be charging exorbitant fees from parents under various headings. On May 23, 2012, the Supreme Court had directed government authorities and educational and academic organisations not to hike fees three years.

Bechan Kapar, president of the Kathmandu chapter of GAN said that an agreement to hike fees by 22 per cent was reached following pressure from private school proprietors. He said GAN has asked the DEO to strictly monitor schools.

Today’s meeting also decided to direct schools to release salary of teaching staff and non-teaching staff through banks for transparency. There are 1,080 institutional schools in Kathmandu district where around 700,000 students are studying.

source: the himalayan times,13 April 2015