Peeved with steep fee hike at city’s prestigious public school Ingraham Institute, parents on Tuesday clashed with school management and teachers. Following the incident, cross complaints were lodged with the police by both parties. Criminal cases too have been registered at Kavi Nagar PS. Demanding arrest of the school director, the parents’ body Abhibhavak Sangh termed the school’s unyielding attitude as breach of rules. However, the school management maintained since Ingraham Institute is a missionary school, it is bound by the District Magistrate’s order. Hence, it is not liable to rollback its tuition fee hike.
“Police should step in to discipline the school for not obeying the DM’s order. There’s a middle income squeeze and parents have every right to compel the school to enforce the DM’s diktat. But instead of complying with the DM’s directive, the school management is misleading the police with its gripe,” said Mahesh Ahuja, patron, Abhibhavak Sangh.
The aggrieved parents also alleged the school had defied the District Magistrate’s order to withdraw the proposed fee hike applicable to all public schools. Meanwhile, in a communiqué to the media, school director Prakash Jathrow said the DM’s order is applicable to public schools, which have availed Government facilities in land allotment and agreed to the allotment conditions wherein reservation and free education to certain categories were imposed.
“Being a missionary school, the fee rubric of this school is already low while school employees are pressurising the management into implementing the provisions of the 6th Pay Commission. The teachers are also demanding wages as per regular Pay Commission enforced by the Education Board. The meagre increment in the fee structure is not a crime and adheres to rules,” said a statement. The director also claimed 90 per cent parents have deposited the fee, 10 per cent parents with vested interests are raising hell and the school will not kowtow to their demands.
Earlier a majority of public schools rolled back the fee hike after DM SVS Ranga Rao issued an order restraining schools from upping tuition fee. But Delhi Public School Ghaziabad (DPSG) defying the DM’s order forced parents to cough up the increased fee. The school had to bow to the diktats of the DM after its director Ratanvir Singh was arrested. He was, later, released on bail after the school accepted the new fee structure under the purview of the DM’s order.