500 schools charge extra fees [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

500 schools charge extra fees

Local February 04, 2016

About 500 schools across the country have realised extra charges as fees for appearing in Secondary School Certificate exam this year and government is planning to take actions against them if they do not return the money in seven working days.
Government is planning to dissolve management committees or governing bodies of the errant schools, education ministry officials said.
‘We received an intelligence report that said that about 500 secondary schools realised extra fees from the examinees,’ said a top official at the ministry.
The education minister, Nurul Islam Nahid, while talking to reporters at the ministry on Wednesday, asked all schools who charged extra admission, session and tuition fees as well as realised extra fees for SSC exams to return the extra money in seven working days.
Nahid issued the order as many schools in November 2015 realised extra fees for the SSC exams that began on February 1 and many in January 2016 charged excessive admission, session and tuition fees up to double the charges of previous year.
‘If we find that any school have failed to return the extra money to the students by the deadline, the ministry will take actions against them,’ warned Nahid.
He also asked education boards to send to the ministry a list of schools who would miss the deadline.
He said that High Court had asked the government to dissolve management committees or governing bodies of the schools who would not return to the students the extra amounts they had realised as fees for SSC exam.
Schools would need to refund in seven working days the extra money they charges as admission, session and tuition fees, said Nahid.
In November 2015, different schools charged up to three or four times the fees fixed by the education boards, Tk 1,355-1,545.
The schools charged extra fees under different categories like mandatory coaching, milad mahfil, mosques, salaries of fourth class employees and others.
The High Court in the last week of November 2015 asked the government to take appropriate action against the managing committees of schools that charged extra fees from SSC candidates.
The court asked the government to make the schools in Dhaka refund extra fees charged from SSC candidates.
Many non-government schools have exponentially increased monthly tuition fees thrusting a sudden burden upon guardians.
Some schools are also reportedly charging readmission fees while some are charging admission fees in excess of the amount set by the government, alleged guardians.
Usually, schools increase the monthly tuition fees by Tk 200-300 each year. Many schools, however, almost doubled the tuition fees.
The education ministry on January 17 directed all the educational institutions to immediately stop collecting additional tuition and other fees.
An ongoing investigation by Directorate of Secondary and High Education has so far found that seven schools in the capital have increased their tuition fees by 11 to 100 per cent, said a joint secretary at the ministry.
‘Not only seven, we have reports that many more schools have realised excessive admission, session and tuition fees,’ said Nahid adding that the ministry asked the directorate to make full list of all errant schools.