‘We will only tell you after assessing the child’
By Qamar ZJ
Residents Watch did a recce of the kind of school fees being charged by the institutions in HSR Layout. What we found was that the fees ranged from Rs 25000 to Rs 3 lakh, including books, uniform and transportation. The schools that had no proper infrastructure or poor quality teachers charged less while the schools that had better infrastructure and faculty charged the most. But the beauty of most of these schools was that they were transparent with their school fee structure. They would answer our queries on phone and by email. Be it Hikmah, Iqra, Freedom International or Chaitanya Techno School. Some schools like Freedom International had put up the school fees on their noticeboard. Ofcourse, the downside of it was that parents complained that the school managements had enhanced the fee by 20-30%. Some parents have even decided to march to the school demanding a fee reduction.
In all of this, the Gnan Srishti School stood out for its odd policy. Call them or email them, they had the same answer. They are not allowed to reveal their fee structure. Go online and the parents are complaining about the school for erratic fee increase every year. When we called to ask, the person on the line said that the school management has instructed them to tell all the callers to visit the school and check it out. When pressed on, the person said that writing an email should help too. But when an email was sent, we get a call again and the person says, “We take a test of your child and based on the assessment, we will tell you how much it would cost for their education.” We were shocked and made our displeasure clear. “When every other school is transparent about their fee structure and gives us the information we ask on phone or email, why are you being so secretive? What are you hiding?” The person said, she would get back in five minutes and never did.
Clearly, there is some differential pricing happening at Gnan Srishti. Quite a sad state of affairs in the education sector. We caution parents who are admitting their wards in such schools. If the fee structure is differential during the admission season, imagine how the fees will change every year once your ward is already studying in their school?
We urge the education department to bring out a rule that orders all schools to display their entire fee structure on their websites and inform parents by email and on phone, when enquired. Just the way the state government brought out a draft to amend the private hospitals’ practice, another draft is necessary to police schools.
