Pressure mounts on parents in Hyderabad to shell out school fees

Hyderabad: At a time when parents are facing a tough time, several private schools in the city have adopted a new method of mounting pressure on parents to pay fees for the period in which they have not conducted classes.

According to parents, after threatening not to allow their wards to online schooling, the schools say their wards would not be allowed to sit for online monthly tests until they pay the fee for the months of March, April and May.

In addition, several parents are facing a tough time with online schooling. For example, Asima, a mother of two children is busy enquiring about various features of different brands of handsets at a mobile shop in Himayatnagar.

Yet, she is not able to figure out as to which one suits best to the specific requirements given to her by the school in which one of her children studying in the Class V.

Speaking to The Hans India, Asima pointed out that the school management had sent a message announcing that it was going to conduct the monthly slip tests, starting from the first week of July.

But, "They have not informed us as to what should we buy. When inquired, the school teacher said, I can procure a smartphone or a laptop," she added.

According to the school circular, the school would upload the question papers five minutes ahead of the examination timings on a app of the school.

As soon as the examination timing starts she should enable the live video streaming of her child facing the mobile camera and start taking the examination.

The school insisted that the students taking examinations should be visible to them on the screen at their end. Failing to switch on the live video streaming or if they fail to see the student taking examination live on their screen, then, all such students would be marked absent.

This makes Asima and parents like her finding it tough to figure out which mobile handset is suitable for this purpose.

Further, the students are asked to write the examination on the slip test notebooks provided for each subject separately.

The parents are asked not to use one book for writing all the tests. Also, present and act as invigilators while their children are giving slip tests.

As soon as the examination time is over then the parents are given five minutes to upload the answer scripts to the school's mobile application. "If we fail to upload then within five minutes then the student would be declared got only zero in that test," the circular warned the parents.

After coming to the entire process the parents have to physically submit the slip test notebooks and project workbooks at the school on or before the date announced by the school.