"Online classes to stop if fees not paid"

Bengaluru: Management of private schools have warned that online classes conducted by them will be stopped if the fees of students are not paid.

The warning comes after Education Minister Suresh Kumar instructed all private schools not to disqualify students if their fees are not paid.

Speaking on the issue, D Shashikumar, General Secretary of Karnataka Associated Management of Schools (KAMS) said that most of the parents have not paid the school fees of their children. This makes it difficult to run a school. We have to pay our teachers salaries and other needs of the schools have to be met. For all this, we rely on the fees paid to us. Hence, we have decided to exclude students from online classes who have not paid their fees.

If we should not ask the parents to pay their children’s schools fees then the government too should refund the fees it seeks under the Right to Education Act. Else, the government should pay 75 per cent of the students’ fees on behalf of the parents; provide private schools relief from paying taxes, electricity bills and water bills and also pay the basic salary of teachers and other staff. Then we can offer free education, he added.

The government must meet the demands of the association before the reopening of schools, otherwise, we will have to protest, warned D Shashikumar.