The Delhi Government has informed the Delhi High Court that “Private Unaided Schools”, being “charitable institutions”, cannot indulge in “profiteering” and are expected to extend maximum support to ensure that in such an emergent situation every student has excess to a proper education by providing them with learning materials online without any discrimination and hindrance.
It further told the Court that these institutions are bound to ensure that students are not harassed by charging of any increased tuition fee or any other fee under a new head while pointing out that some schools were found indulging in certain malpractices which are “inhumane” especially in view of the outbreak of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
The Government responded to a plea by the action committee of unaided recognized private schools, an umbrella body of 400 private schools, which had sought the quashing of two orders of the city government, issued on April 18 and August 28, restraining schools from collecting annual charges, development fee and any other fee other than the tuition fee.
In the affidavit filed by the Delhi Government, standing counsel Gautam Narayan informed the Bench of Justice Jayant Nath that the reason behind the government order is to ameliorate to the extent possible the financial constraints being faced by parents and to obviate the possibility of any child being denied education owing to the incapacity or incapability of patents to defray the school fees.
The Delhi Government further told the Court that these are interim measures put in place to deal with the unprecedented situation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. “Moreover, since during the lockdown, only online teaching facilities are being provided, it was considered expedient to permit the charging of the tuition fee only, to enable schools to defray expenses towards salary and allowances to teachers and staff,” stated the affidavit.
The government further contended that on examination of the fee statement of private unaided schools, it was found that in most cases, the expenditure incurred on salary and establishment infrastructure was approximately 40%-60% of the tuition fee charged by schools.
“It was therefore considered expedient to allow the schools to continue charging only tuition fee as the same would have enabled the schools to continue imparting education to students during the unprecedented situation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic,” said the affidavit.
The government told the court that some private schools were not providing online learning material/classes to students whose parents have not paid or not agreed to pay the “illegally hiked fee”.
Even though the tuition fee covered the cost towards salary, establishments, and curricular activities such as library, lab, science fee, computer fee, examination expenses, etc., some private schools were not paying salary to the teaching and non-teaching staffs in this ongoing lockdown or paying them less, said the affidavit.
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The Government submitted that the acute financial pressure and stress on the general public owing to the pandemic and measures imposed to deal with it have not abated. In such a situation, the attempt of the petitioner association to burden parents by seeking to recover amounts presuming that normal physical functioning has resumed is harsh, unjust, unfair and inequitable to say the very least.