During a Legislative Assembly session on Thursday, March 23, the Maharashtra School Education Minister Deepak Kesarkar announced the formation of a committee to address the issue of unpaid fees in certain private schools in the state. The committee aims to prevent any inconvenience to students and guidelines will be established to mitigate any negative impacts on their education. "Payment of fees for self-financed schools is mandatory. Parents have a choice which school to send their children to," Kesarkar said, stated a report by PTI.
In response to follow-up queries, the minister stated that the government does not have control over the regulation of fees for private educational institutions. He further explained that fees are determined based on the facilities offered. Rajesh Tope, an MLA from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), suggested that since 25 per cent of seats in self-financed schools are reserved under the Right to Education (RTE) Act, the government should reimburse the schools.
Kesarkar claimed that the state government has already reimbursed Rs 875 crore, of which, Rs 425 crore was obtained from the federal government up until last year. In response to a question about 200 Lexicon International School students in Pune's Wagholi being held in the building due to unpaid tuition, he said the incident occurred on January 18 of this year.
There were disagreements between parents and the school administration. However, no parent volunteered to participate in the investigation that the Lonikand police station started. Therefore, he continued, the police closed the case as reported by PTI.
Replying to another question on restarting electricity connections for 9,262 government schools, the minister said the energy department will be informed that the government will reimburse the electricity dues to schools. Schools are charged tariffs that are less than the residential rates, he said stated in the PTI report.
