Private school charges fee without holding online classes, allege students

Private school charges fee without holding online classes, allege students

Srinagar: Students admitted at the MET Higher Secondary School Barzulla in Srinagar have alleged that the institution is forcing them to pay full fee for the last six months of COVID-19 lockdown period without conducting any online classes or distributing assignments.
The school management while acknowledging the complaints, however, maintained that the online classes were conducted “from the head office” of the school based in north Kashmir saying that distributing the assignments among the students “was not feasible”.
Several class 10 students at the school, who are currently preparing for the upcoming annual class 10 board examination told Kashmir Reader that after COVID-19 forced closure of schools in Kashmir in March, the school left them to fend for themselves forcing them to solely rely on tuition.
An aggrieved student alleged that the school did not even bother to even contact them afterwards so as to provide them guidance on how to go about their studies.
“The school management is now calling us out of blue to the school and demanding the fee. I fail to understand what for,” a student said.
Several other students shared similar complaints saying that the school, unlike most of the institutions, neither conducted any online classes nor provided them any assignments throughout the COVID-19 lockdown period.
They said the school management had issued the registration forms to them for the upcoming board examinations only after they deposited the full or at least part of their “unjustified” fee.
Many students alleged that apart from the tuition fee, the school was even charging them computer fees for the lockdown period while the computer labs at the institution had remained shut throughout.
Principal MET School, Mohammad Amin Kaloo acknowledged that the school had not distributed assignments among the students saying “it was not feasible to do so” without giving any explanation as to why they could do so.
He, however, said that online classes were conducted from Sopore where the head office of the institution is located.
The Private Schools Association had in June announced a fee concession for the “deserving” students at the institutions in view of the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, which has severely hit the economy.
Recently, Principal Secretary School Education, Asgar Samoon had tweeted that the department was mulling a fee reduction at the private schools in Jammu and Kashmir in view of the pandemic.

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