A section of guardians agitated about the issue of payments of school fee arrears which led to the closure of two premier private schools in Kolkata, on Thursday, April 7.
The spokespersons of GD Birla Center for Education and Ashok Hall Girls’ Higher Secondary School shared their decision of shutting down the institutions with the news agency PTI.
The decision was prompted by concerns over, "the safety and protection of students and teachers" on the account of the "agitation at the institutions", informed a spokesperson of both the educational institutions, GD Birla Center for Education and Ashok Hall Girls’ Higher Secondary School, as per PTI report.
Despite the payment of fees, the school had not distributed annual report cards or given promotions to a section of students, informed the spokesperson of GD Birla Guardians Forum, Rajib Ghosh. He also blamed the school management for creating the stalemate, thereby, deflecting the attention from their “legitimate grievance” against the school management.
On April 4, the new session of the school began.
"There was no demonstration, no disruption of academic activities on our part. As our children were unfairly deprived of annual report cards and promotion despite payment of a certain amount of fees as directed by the court, we stood near the school gate. This is blackmailing tactics by the school amounting to playing with the future of thousands of students," Ghosh claimed.
He also stated that the students from lower infant to Classes XI and XII were affected by the developments.
The spokesperson of GD Birla and Ashok Hall also explained that they had "no problem with the payment of outstanding fees of 2019-20 as directed by the court, some of the guardians even refused to pay that amount and falsely claimed that they had cleared the fees despite having paid only a fraction of it in a haphazard manner."
On Wednesday, the Calcutta High Court directed that none of the 145 schools, which are in connection with the petitions regarding the school fees during the COVID-19 pandemic, will deny promotion to any student to the next session or withhold their report card until the further orders.
A 14-year-old student, Soumi Dutta of Class VIII in GD Birla was disheartened by the developments.
"After a long hiatus, in-person classes had just started. I was so excited to meet my friends and attend offline classes. But now I am very upset. Hope the issue gets resolved soon," she said standing outside GD Birla building in Ranikuthi area of Tollygunge.
On Wednesday, the bench directed joint special officers who were appointed by the court to go into the dispute regarding the fee liability and to take a decision in this matter, in order to ensure that the schools do not suffer from any deficiency of funds. It also directed the officers to look into the complaints of arbitrary increase in school fees during the pandemic period and take a decision on the issue with regard to the actual payment of fees by the guardians/students.
