Without fees, how will we pay teachers, others: Private schools
BHUBANESWAR: The issue of school fees is threatening to drive a wedge between parents and private school administrations. Amid demand from parents for fee waiver during the pandemic that has resulted in job losses and pay cuts for many, schools said they have to pay the salary of teachers and non-teaching staff, and any deviation would result in many of them getting affected.
“Of the total 6,700 private schools in Odisha, majority the of schools collect very reasonable fees and have been offering quality education for years. If parents are worried about salary cuts and job losses, do they want teachers and non-teaching staff to face similar ordeal?” asked B N Patnaik, president of Confederation of Odisha Private Schools.
Patnaik said most of the private schools are run by societies and trusts, which are non-proprietary and non-profit in nature. “Every year 85% of the revenue has to be and is utilised for upgrading, maintaining and running of the institutions within the same financial year. So, there is hardly any fund left for the next academic year,” Patnaik added.
Besides, teaching has not stopped and teachers have to put in extra effort to reach out to students during online classes. “Teachers are taking online classes as they used to in classroom. Private schools have already decided to withdraw the 10% fee hike for the current year. But if parents do not even pay the reduced fee, then schools will be forced to shut down,” said K C Satpathy, regional director of DAV Group of Institutes, Odisha.
The schools said that neither the state government nor the Centre has stopped or waived taxes and regular payments like building tax, property tax, insurance coverage of school buses, electricity and telephone bills, TDS and ESI due to the pandemic. Despite the Covid-19 outbreak, schools have to pay taxes and bills like before and also have to give salaries to teachers and non-teaching staff.
Several teachers said it has not been easy to teach online. “It was a big challenge for schools and teachers to shift to online mode without much preparation due to the sudden lockdown. But teachers tried to do their best, at times putting in 14 to 16 hours a day to prepare themselves for the online challenge,” said Anita Samal, a teacher in a city-based private school. And then teaching students under the constant supervision of parents is not an easy task.
“Despite putting in so much effort, if parents don’t pay the fees, the schools will stop giving us our salaries. Do you think that’s fair?” she asked.
Meanwhile, some of the parents can’t seem to decide whether to pay the fees or not. “We are really confused and cannot decide what to do. While we are not very satisfied with the quality of online classes, we cannot negate the efforts put in by the teachers. And they also have families,” said Sasmita Palei, who has two school-going children. “But then schools should take only the tuition fee and not ask us to pay for services like transportation and canteen costs since the schools are closed,” she added.
Some parents alleged that a few of the schools have stopped sharing online links of classes to students whose parents have not paid school fees. When asked about this, the president of Confederation of Odisha Private Schools, said, “We have requested all private schools not to stop online classes of students during the lockdown.”