National 3 (Spotlight Weekly)

Implementation Challenge

The report submitted by the fee-fixing task force could regulate the fees of private schools

By THAKUR AMGAI

If this report is actually implemented unlike the previous ones, parents will not have much say in how much they would like to spend on their children’s education. Even if a parent can afford to, he/she will have to stick within a ceiling. To parents who are very concerned about their children and who have the means to spend generously for them, it may sound undemocratic, but ironically such a move will receive warm welcome from politically affiliated student unions and probably some parents who are less aware of the quality of education. The maintenance of quality does not receive much attention.

However, in general, there are reasons for most guardians to keep their fingers crossed for the implementation of this report. If implemented, the institutional schools will not be able to fix their fees arbitrarily and cannot charge for facilities they do not provide.

“This report has included all the sectors and suggested fees which are reasonable to all stakeholders - the students, guardians and the schools,” said Suprabhat Bhandari, President of Guardians’ Association of Nepal, who is also the member of the task force.

Additional facilities : Additional charge

The task force, which was formed a year ago with one-month term finally submitted its report on July 16 because of the differences among the members of the task force. Although, officials are reluctant to make the report public, members of the task force say that the task force has suggested fees between Rs. 300 to Rs. 700 considering their location and level- the least in primary schools of rural area and the most in secondary schools of the urban area. Considering the government investment on students studying at community schools, the fees cannot be considered unreasonable despite the claims to the contrary made by the student unions.

According to the educational statistics of the year 2000/2001, the government expenditure in community school averaged at Rs. 230 per month per student with up to Rs. 647 in some of the urban schools. In addition, the community schools are housed in government land and infrastructure for which they do not have to pay rent or bear depreciation cost. Reduction of further fees could mean a strong deterioration in the quality of education. As Dr. Tirtha Khaniya says, “limiting fees could mean limiting the quality.”

However, there should be provisions to include the underprivileged children. “Certain amount of fees from schools which charge way above the normal, should go for the nation (welfare of the underprivileged children.)”

There are provisions in the existing regulations for scholarships and the present report also suggests that. But in most cases the targeted group has not received due benefits due to lack of monitoring.

The fees fixed by the task force do not seem too low to run private schools as well. The schools are allowed to take fees for additional facilities such as transportation, lunch, examination, computer, swimming and other special trainings. Commensurate with the facilities, the schools are also allowed to charge additional 50 per cent above the upper ceiling. However, if the additional fees are not monitored properly there could be a lot of misuses.

Parents are rather willing to pay higher fees if the school is transparent than paying small amounts in over a dozen titles. “There are schools which charge much more under different titles?” a parent of a leading school expressed his rage when asked why he paid such a high fee.

“The ceiling of fee is not appropriate according to the present system [democracy] that we are following,” said Shankar Raj Pande, a parent representative of Rato Bangala School. Agrees Dr. Khaniya, “Those who can pay should be allowed to pay.” Whether it will be implemented remains to be seen.

A report submitted last year by a similar committee was not much different. It had similar representations from the stakeholders. The committee coordinated by Jaya Ram Giri, had suggested Rs. 684 to Rs.1,365 as the appropriate fee ceiling in schools depending upon the teacher-student ratio and other physical and educational facilities.