460 Pvt Schools to Collect Fees With a 15% Reduction Only on Monthly Basis: Delhi Govt. After HC’s Order

On July 1, 2021 (Thursday), Delhi Government issued guidelines for private schools to collect fees on a monthly basis with a 15% reduction. This came three days after the Supreme Court dismissed the Delhi Government’s plea of putting a stay on the High Court’s order regarding private schools’ annual charges collection. In lieu of this, the educational department of Delhi has finally issued its guidelines for the private schools while enforcing the High Court’s order.

To clear this fee related confusion and to prevent schools from taking any extra charges, Delhi Govt. has issued its guidelines. This is highly important because students are not utilizing the basic school facilities because of the online classes. In addition to this, Delhi Govt. has also issued a process to collect last year’s annual charges and development fee as ordered by the HC. The educational department has once again reminded the school to not expel any students if they are unable to pay the fee, as we are going through a pandemic and we don’t know what is going on in a student’s personal life.

What is the High Court’s Order Regarding Pvt School’s Fees?

HC has set aside the two orders that were issued last year that prohibited private schools from collecting annual charges and development charges. The recent order states:

• Schools may collect annual and development charges for the last academic year retrospectively in six monthly instalments. This would come into effect from June 10, 2021.
• Schools can only collect the charges pertaining to last year after applying a 15% reduction on total school fees since students are not using most of the facilities in lockdown.
• Schools can also charge the whole fee that includes tuition fees for the current 2021-22 academic year.

Delhi Government’s Guidelines for Private Schools

Now that schools are free to continue those charges, Delhi Govt. listed a few guidelines. A statement issued by the government states, “In order to clear the confusion and give much-needed relief to parents, Delhi government has issued an order to private schools to charge fees on monthly basis, under approved heads only but with a 15% deduction in the fees for the academic year 2020-21”.

Parents complained that schools were not offering a 15% rebate on tuition fees. To clarify this, Delhi Govt. further states, “if the monthly fee of the school in FY 2020-21 is ₹3,000, the schools are entitled to collect ₹2,550 per month after a deduction of 15 per cent. If the school has collected the fee in excess of the direction referred above, the same shall be refunded to the parents or adjusted in the subsequent month of fee to the parents”. These guidelines clarify most of the doubts that parents are facing currently.

In addition to this, the Directorate of Education (DoE) told schools not to exclude any student from the ongoing activities of the school if the parents are unable to pay the fee. The government also cleared that this would be followed by only those 460 schools which filed the petition in the HC.

Delhi Government Clarifies:

• Schools cannot charge the transportation fee.
• Schools cannot increase their fee for this academic session until further orders.
• Schools cannot collect fees on a quarterly basis.
• Apart from the 460 petitioner schools, the remaining private schools cannot charge annual and development fees. The official said, “remaining schools will follow DOE orders issued in April and August last year”.
• The order further states, “[petitioner schools] shall neither stop payment of monthly salary nor reduce the existing total emolument to the teaching and non-teaching staff of their schools in the name of non-availability of total funds and arrange the funds in case of any shortfalls from the society/trust running the school”.

Now that schools can charge last year’s fees on a monthly basis with a 15% reduction, parents need to know that this order is not applicable to all Delhi schools. Only those private schools that petitioned (460 schools) can continue with this order. The remaining private schools have to charge according to the previous year’s DoE guidelines. In addition to this, as Udit Prakash Rai, Director (Education), states, “If any individual request is made by the parent/ward finding it difficult to remit annual fees for the academic year 2020-21 in the above terms, the school management (is) to consider such representation on a case-to-case basis sympathetically”.

If you’re exploring schools for admission, you can check the list of all private schools in Delhi here.