AAP demands 30% fee relief to parents of school students

Bengaluru: Demanding at least 30 per cent relief in school fees to parents, State unit of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) staged a protest near Maurya Circle on Wednesday morning.

The protest comes in the background of the High Court ruling that only 15 per cent can be deducted for the academic year 2020-2021.

The protest was staged by AAP along with parent associations such as Samanvaya Samiti and Voice of Parents, urging Education Minister, BC Nagesh to take immediate action in this regard.

"Repeated lockdown resulted in lakhs of parents losing jobs and dip in comes and savings. Such being the case, how do we expect them to pay school fee now?" asked Shri Prithvi Reddy, AAP State convenor.

He added that former education minister, Suresh Kumar had instructed schools to reduce fees without an adequate actionable plan to implement this forcing schools to approach High Court last week where they got relief as the court asked schools to reduce fees by 15%," he added.

"Parents have had a very tough time, some have lost jobs and suffered losses in business. The poor and middle class have been vastly affected. Children are not getting enrolled," said Prakash Nedungadi, president of AAP SR Nagar ward.

He added that our other demand is that the government needs to publish weekly attendance and enrollment figures of students. "As per our information, parents are not able to pay the fees and are not enrolling their students," added Prakash.

AAP also demands that school management committees have to be set up to ensure fee determination is done with all the shareholders.

AAP will submit a memorandum to the CM stating all their demands.