Kathmandu District Education Office (DEO) on Sunday finally decided to hike the tuition fees of institutional schools. A meeting of the District Fee determination and Monitoring Committee under the chairmanship of District Education Officer decided to hike the tuition fees by 22 percet.
Though the Education Regulations makes it mandatory for the authorities to determine the tuition fee three months before a new academic session starts, the decision was made just four days before the new session, which starts formally on Thursday.
District Education Officer Bal Krishna Ranjit, however, said, “Current increment was just 7.3 to 7.4 per cent annual increment to the fee ceiling four years back.” He said, “After the fee hike, the tuition fee at ‘C’ grade schools for primary level is Rs 1,342, lower secondary level is Rs 1,525 and secondary level is Rs 2,074.”
The DEO was mulling over the new fee structure for more than a month. A proposal submitted by Private and Boarding Schools Organisation Nepal (PABSON) has sought increment in tuition fee by 60 per cent. The proposal went unacceptable by parents.
Following the rejection, rounds of talks were held for more than a month for negotiations before coming to the conclusion today.
Representatives from PABSON, National PABSAN, Guardians Association of Nepal (GAN) and other stakeholders were present in the meeting today.
As per the Education Act, government fixes the tuition fee for ‘C’ grade schools and schools in other categories have to adjust the fees accordingly. The ‘B’ grade schools could hike the fee by 25 per cent, ‘A’ grade by 50 per cent and ‘D’ grade should decrease the fee by 25 per cent to ‘C’ grade schools' fee ceiling.
The Education Act provisions that, any school has to get a prior approval from the government authorities to hike their fees. If the school is found to be hiking fee without taking permission from the government authorities, it will have to return the hiked fee to students.
The Education Regulations also states that the annual fee should not be more than two months' tuition fee and deposit and admission fee should not be more than one month's tuition fee.
On May 23, 2012, the Supreme Court had directed the government authorities and educational institutions not to hike fees for next three years.
Bechan Kapar, president, GAN-Kathmandu Chapter said that the GAN also agreed to hike the tuition fees by 22 per cent after they could not take pressure from private schools proprietors.
The meeting also decided to direct the schools to release
the salary of teaching and non-teaching staff through banks for transparency.
There are 1,080 institutional schools in the district where around 700,000 students are studying. The fee will come to an effect after the CFDMC endorse it.
Tuition fee for academic year 2011/12
1. Primary level- A grade (Rs 1,650), B grade (Rs 1,305), C grade (Rs 1,100)
2. Lower Secondary Level- A grade (Rs 1,875), B grade (Rs 1,563), C grade (Rs 1,250)
3. Secondary Level- A grade (Rs 2,250), B grade (Rs 2,125), C grade (Rs 1,700)
Tuition fee for academic year 2015/16
1. Primary level- A grade (Rs 2,013), B grade (Rs 1,675), C grade (Rs 1,342)
2. Lower Secondary Level- A grade (Rs 2,287), B grade (Rs 1,907), C grade (Rs 1,525)
Source: Agencies
