FFRC to review facilities in schools ahead of admission session
Srinagar, Aug 10: The Fee Fixation and Regulation Committee (FFRC) has started physical inspections of the private educational institutions amid the complaints against the functioning of these schools.
To begin with, Chairman FFRC Justice (Retd) Sunil Hali visited five to six private schools in south Kashmir districts to inspect their functioning.
"I visited some schools to see how the schools are functioning and to check the facilities these schools provide to the students," Hali told Greater Kashmir.
He said the inspection of these schools was to see if the facilities, mentioned in their documents, are really provided to the students or not.
"It is necessary to check if the students really avail the facilities which the school management reflect in their papers and files they submit to fix their tuition fees," he said.
Asked about the admission fees charged by the private schools, Chairman FFRC said that all the schools claim to have done away with such practice. "But our inspections will continue when the admission session begins in private schools," he said.
As already reported by this newspaper, FFRC warned the private schools to refrain from charging security deposit or admission fees from parents at the time of the admissions.
The FFRC Chairman in an order said that charging security deposit or admission fee was a clear violation of the fee regulation.
The instructions were issued amid the complaints received from parents that some private schools were repeatedly charging security deposit from the parents at the time of the admission of their ward, "ostensibly in lieu of Admission fee."
FFRC has already declared such practice as arbitrary and noted that it was viewed as an indirect attempt to circumvent the statutory provisions of the fee regulatory mechanism established under law.
The FFRC chairman has already urged the parents who have already deposited any amount under the title of Security deposit or any other unapproved fee head to come forward and lodge a formal complaint before the committee.
"The identity of the complainant will be kept strictly confidential," the FFRC circular reads.cc
