With the commencement of admissions in the private schools for the new academic year, the Jharkhand Parents Association (JPA) alleged that many schools have arbitrarily increased the admission charges.

President of JPA Ajay Rai said, “Almost all private schools have increased their admission fees by 25% to 30%. The admission fee in one school was RS. 65,000 previous year which has increased to 80,000 for 2019.”

Rai said that the schools do not consider the financial situation of the parents and increase the fees as per their whims and fancies.

Rai said that while the Fee Regulation and Control Act has been passed by the assembly, it has not yet been notified. "Implementation of this Act is very important to ensure that our children get good education at an affordable rate. The government should ensure that the Act is implemented from the coming academic session," he said.

The members of JPA also pointed out that the guidelines of Right To Education Act, 2009, to give admission to BPL children on 25% of total seats at the beginners level is also not being implemented properly.

"We have received many complains where the children were enrolled on BPL reserved seat but had to quit mid way because they were unable to bear the expenses demanded by schools on the name of various extracurricular activities,” Rai said.

Rai also alleged that the minority schools do not follow the RTE Act guidelines referring to their special status and no one keeps a check on them.

JPA also raised the issue of introduction of nursery class in some schools which were already offering preparatory classes. “This is just an additional financial burden on parents. Parents always try that their child gets admitted in a reputed school in the starting classes as getting admission in senior classes is almost impossible.

In such a situation, an additional junior level class is just a burden on both parents as well as children.” Rai said.

The association also raised concern over security in school premises and claimed that many schools do not follow CBSE guidelines regarding security arrangement in schools.

Sanjay Saraf of the association claimed that most of the schools do not have CCTV cameras installed in their classrooms.