“Regulation doesn’t mean strangulation”

GK: After a month or so, the admission session in private schools will start and complaints will be received about the admission fee or donation amount charged by schools. When Schools collect annual charges, why insist for donation from parents. What is the criteria to fix annual charge?

Sunil Hali: There are three types of fees that a school can charge as per the act. These include tuition fee, annual fee, and the transport fee. A substantial portion of tuition fee goes to the teachers’ salary, electricity, or telephone bills. The annual fee is charged for the facilities provided by the schools to the children. For instance, a generator is running, someone has an AC, or playground, smart classes, and other facilities. Then there is capital investment like someone has to install 10 ACs. This has to be done by school itself. The working expense of that has to be charged. The annual fees are not decided by the school. When they give their audit report, there is a revenue and expenditure part in it. The expenditure part more or less, except the salary part, deals with what facilities they provide or how much they have to spend to provide this service.

The annual fee is legally chargeable. There is a little confusion among people that schools cannot take annual charges. Annual charge is provided under the act. It is not that the school will determine. The school sends us a list, an audit report, certified by a chartered accountant. It has all the details of the services provided to the children. Based on that, the annual charges are fixed for the school.

GK: During your tenure, how many schools have submitted their files to fix or regulate their fee structure. Often there is a complaint that FFRC delays approval. Why is it so?

Sunil Hali: There are approximately 5500 private schools. But according to our assessment, almost 2000 private schools have not submitted their files for regulation of fees. The school fee gets regulated after every three years. According to the data available with us, the fees of around 3000 private schools have been fixed. But it has been done in rotation. It is not that 2000 are yet to. The process gets delayed due to certain problems. Actually, the chairman is not the only person who determines the fees on behalf of the committee. There are four other members in it which include Secretary School Education Department, Chartered Accountant, Secretary JKBOSE, and Director School Education. So at times due to their non-availability, the meetings get delayed.

Since last December, we have cleared around 1200 files which pertained to regulation of fees in schools. Now a new Secretary Education was appointed. We will soon convene a meeting and try to clear the pending files. Last time we faced problems as some members of the committee did not cooperate. Whenever we would take up the files, the members would raise issues and sought discussions on some non-issues. The Chairman has only one vote and cannot take all the decisions. But we try our best to clear all the files as early as possible.

In Jammu, we had about 22 files and we cleared all of them. There is not much pendency in Kashmir either. The problem is that the schools that have not yet approached the committee for regulation of their fees has become a problem for the people. There are around 1500 such schools. So we will soon issue a notice to these schools. If they will not submit the files, we will not allow them to charge fee from students. We are trying to put pressure on them so that they submit their files. They cannot raise fee arbitrarily . If they remain unchecked, then they trouble the parents.

GK: There is a complaint that the FFRC has kept the same yardsticks for all the schools irrespective of their standards. 

Sunil Hali: This is not how we analyse the files. Every school has its own audit report. According to that, we see how many facilities it provides, how much entitlement it has. It is not decided on the basis of categorisation of schools, whether it is a big school or a small school. When we talk about low-budget schools, their facilities are not much. So we don’t give them a percentage. If some budget school charges Rs 300 as monthly tuition fees, if it is increased by 6 percent, what will he get? So we increase it by Rs 30 to Rs 35 directly. We know that they don’t have facilities. But they also have to run the school and pay teachers’ salary. So, we consider all these factors. As far as middle-ranked schools are concerned, there are facilities, but not of that standard. Their fees are also not that much. The third category is high-budget schools. One can count them on finger tips. How many big schools we have. In Kashmir, there will be 100 to 150 such schools. We have categorised them. Ultimately, the analysis is not a random exercise. We try to rationalise it by looking at their audit report. What is written in the audit report and what is their revenue, tuition fee, or their annual fee and their expenditure. Suppose their revenue is high, expenditure is low, then we reduce it a little. Now, the schools which have a deficit, their revenue is low and their expenditure is high. There is no uniform scale. It varies from school-to-school. So, according to audit report, we work it out. And Rule 7 also provides that these are the factors which have to be taken into consideration. One thing I want to clear is that schools always complain that they have to build a a new building. But that burden is not to be borne by the parents. Because it is capital investment, a permanent asset.

The school will run for 100 years. So, why will the children pay today? If the school has taken a loan, the students can give them interest as a service provided. FFRC does not have enough staff to inspect every school. There are 2500 to 4000 schools but we have only 12 people in the office. We inspected some schools. But there should be awareness among parents about the facilities provided by schools. And if the facility claimed by the school is not really provided to students then FFRC can reduce that expenditure. But unfortunately, parents don’t take any interest. We have already issued a circular and informed parents to register their complaints and their names will not be disclosed. Till date only three parents filed complaints and we started an investigation against schools.

GK: While parents are seen raising issues about private schools on social media, instead of registering formal complaints against such schools, something also highlighted by Education Minister, there is a perception that FFRC is like a toothless tiger. While you have issued orders with recommendation of strict action against certain schools, nothing happened?

Sunil Hali: Whenever a complaint is filed against a school charging more fee, we issue a notice. We issued directions that a 10 percent penalty will be imposed for violating the committee’s order. By and large, we have addressed all the complaints and most of the schools have withdrawn their orders which were opposed by parents. The problem is what will the parents get from social media? They have to come to us. They will get effective relief from the committee only.

GK: If we talk about admission fee, some schools have changed it to a one-time annual charge. They take it in two or three instalments and claim it is permissible. But the amount that is paid as an annual fee is very huge. Furthermore, schools increase it every year.

Sunil Hali: One purpose of this was that they used to pay one-time admission because new students were enrolled in the school. In case of high end schools they used to charge Rs 20,000 from them. This was my predecessor’s system. It was very logical. The committee decided that the schools should not charge admission fee. There was another logical reason that students who are already studying have already contributed. So the newly enrolled students contribute by paying annual charges. That was the basis for it. I had to follow it because it was a precedent. But the idea was that the admission fee that you take in lakhs, should be reduced. I am not saying that after issuing our circulars everything is sorted but it has some effect.

GK: But private schools claim that not every parent is angry with their functioning. 

Sunil Hali: There cannot be any compromise on law. You have to follow the law. The statute has said that schools cannot take admission fees. It does not matter if the parent is angry or not. Even if the parent is not angry, we can proceed against the school. But we have often observed that whenever parents comes to file a complaint, they have a personal issue. Later, they compromise and do not visit our office. Another very important thing is that parents do not submit a detailed grievance. Sometimes, the name of the school is not given. Parents should also be conscious that we don’t have a magical wand. Parents who pay admission fee are also accomplices. They are also violating the law. I am not saying that the school has abandoned taking admission fees. But there is a fear among schools, they are afraid. But generally parents do not complain to us.

GK: Parents often remain at loggerheads with schools over transport fees during vacation period. Or there is a complaint when the child has to leave after the 10th or 12th, a student who has not paid fee for five or six months, his admit card is denied. But at this point of time law takes a back seat and emotions come to fore. Being chairman of the committee, what is your take on this?

Sunil Hali: The schools must have their own bylaws. According to the bylaws, we cannot interfere in their management. Neither can the government interfere in their management. How the school has to be run is the prerogative of the private school. This is the judgment of the Supreme Court, we can’t interfere. They can fix their fees, we have to only regulate that. The weakness of the private schools is that they don’t enforce their bylaws. I gave a direction that every child will pay the fees on the next 15th of the month. If he doesn’t pay for the three months then the student has to pay the late fees. Secondly, the transport. The school that has its own transport, they don’t employ it for 15 days but for a whole year. They are permanent, till they are thrown out. There was an issue of winter, what to do in winter. Earlier, the schools used to take transport fees for two months. Then we decided that they cannot take it for two months. Because their petrol expenses are zero but they have to pay the salary of drivers and carry maintenance of the buses. When the school opens after two months, the bus should be in a proper condition. So, by this logic 50 percent fees is to be paid only for that purpose. If there are holidays for a week or 10 days we cannot deny the transport fees. People must understand that these (schools) are private organisations. Normally, we cannot interfere in their affairs. We cannot go to a private businessman’s house and tell them how to run their business? But, since this is a public activity and public duty, and the public at large is involved, the government said it will regulate them. But regulation doesn’t mean strangulating them. Regulation means that the parameters that we have fixed, according to the rules, if they are not being followed, we have to check them. The schools should not take excess fee. We have to check that. Around 10-12 lakh students are enrolled in private schools. So, we are also conscious that when we revise their fee after 3 years, we see how much impact it has on children. At that time, we have to balance it so that there is no burden on children. That is why we make a scale of 6 percent to 7 percent hike. The logic is that it should not affect parents.

GK: When a parent does not pay fee for five or six months, schools deny admit card. Following this, parents approach government and make school a villain?

Sunil Hali: Private schools are basically private organisations and we have seen that in big schools, there is an outstanding fee in lakhs of rupees. Though we count that as an earning, the schools do not get that amount which is outstanding with the parents. Earlier I issued a circular that with respect to fee fixation of schools, no authority in the state should entertain any application from the parents against the private schools. Be it Director, DC, CEO, ZEO, or Tehsildar. They have nothing to do with it. It is exclusively dealt by the fee committee. But when every officer starts entertaining complaints, schools are harassed. Sometimes the application is given to the DC or SHO and they start their own process. But since I issued a circular, there has been a reduction in it. Private schools should also be conscious. I have informed the private schools that if any officer summons them regarding regulation of fees, they have no business to entertain. The Director has no role to play in the regulation of fees. Secretary JKBOSE has to look after the affiliation of the schools, not the fees.

About the situation wherein a parent does not pay fee, why do schools allow this to accumulate? The school has the right to take action against it. Problem is, why does the school allow this to accumulate? If the fee is paid on time then only the school will run and teachers will get the salary. No one gives that from their pocket. The school has to adopt their own method.

GK: You must have also received a complaint that a school did not pick a child from bus stop because the student had not cleared the fees.

Sunil Hali: Let us understand the basic principle. If you do not pay fee, you don’t get the facility. If you don’t pay the transport fee, if you don’t pay the tuition fee, then you have no business to be there. This is a fundamental thing. Those who come to private schools have to be mentally prepared to pay the fees.

GK: The new admission session is likely to begin soon. Will there be any check on private schools?

Sunil Hali: I again warn private schools that if they indulge in charging admission fees, then we are going to take the assistance of the Enforcement Directorate because this is money laundering. We will take action against them. We will allow them to charge reasonable fees but if they follow proper procedure. We have given them a proforma. The file has to be filled accordingly. We do not allow private schools to come here unless we analyse the file. We again advise the private schools that they should not come to this office unless they are required.