Parents bodies bat for making school fee a poll issue

• Associations vow to bring together 30 lakh parents in the State for this purpose
• As the Tripathi Rao Committee report is being kept under wraps, the parents have no other go, but to make it an election issue
• HSPA has been fighting for regulation of fee in private unaided schools for 10 years now

Hyderabad: Questioning whether "Chaduvu Leni Telangana Itada Bangaru Telangana" (Can Telangana become golden Telangana without education), several parents associations in the city decided to make fee regulation in private school an election issue.

The associations have vowed to bring together 30 lakh parents in the State for this purpose.

The Hyderabad School Parents Association (HSPA) said the association has been fighting for the regulation of fee in the private unaided schools in the State.

Despite a prolonged battle for the last 10 years, it got nowhere because those in the ruling party as well as other political parties considered it a non-issue.

"While judicial process on the issue is taking ages, the State government is dilly-dallying for too long.

It has kept the Tripathi Rao Committee report under wraps, the parents have no other go, but to make it an election issue," said Ashish from the HSPA.

Prakash Rao from the Child Rights Protection pointed out that the State government seemed more interested in availability of liquor shops and prices than the availability of schools and affordability of education.
Lashing out at the inaction of the State government, the parents' associations pointed out that considering some critical parameters from 2014-15 and 2016-17 the number of schools in Telangana has come down from 43,839 to 41,337.

Similarly, the number of school-going children declined from 48.5 lakh to 47.8 lakh. Further, the percentage of Class V Students, who can read Class II text came down from 54.5 to 47.1 per cent. But, around the same time, the fee hike has been showing an upward trend.

Hyderabad is known as the most affordable city in the country. But, the school fee at all levels has gone up by 100 to 500 per cent in the last 10 years.

Of late, the Telangana has got the unique distinction for growing number of suicides related to the school fee. "There is a specific order that no school can collect more than Rs 5,000 at the time of admission.

But, several private schools have been collecting anywhere from Rs 2 to Rs 3 lakh. Yet, the official machinery remained blind to the en masse violation of prevention of regulations related to capitation fee.