Kolkata: Most schools declare revised fee structures – Times of India

Kolkata: A large number of city schools uploaded their revised fee structures on their websites on Friday. Those who did not were still in legal consultations till late on Friday evening and said they would put it up on Saturday.
This is being done in accordance with the Calcutta High Court order of October 13 that asked schools in the state to bring down tuition fees for the pandemic months by 20%. The order has been upheld by the Supreme Court in an interim order passed on October 28, though the apex court stayed some other clauses till further hearing.
All the six Loreto schools in the city and those in the rest of the state announced their revised fee structure together on Friday noon. Those were signed by the respective principals, who declared that the revised fees were 80% of the tuition fees that the schools had charged in the corresponding months of 2019, following the HC order. A relief of 20% has also been extended for session fees. For example at Loreto Convent Entally, kids of nursery will now have to pay Rs 2,900 and those in class XII Rs 3,600. The session fees was scaled down by 20% of the usual Rs 2,500, stated the notice, signed by principal Jessica Gomes Surana.
Among the other schools that have revised their structures following the HC order are Apeejay schools on Park Street and in Salt Lake, Queen of the Missions schools, Frank Anthony Public School, South Point, MP Birla, Birla High School Boys and Girls and Shri Shikshayatan. Some of those will announce their structures on Saturday. “We are in last-minute legal consultations. We will upload the revised fee structure on our website on Saturday,” said Krishna Damani, spokesperson for both South Point High School and MP Birla Foundation. “Before the court case started, we had given concessions of 17%-23% . Now that we are having to do a re-calculation of a flat 20%, it is taking us a while and we should be able to upload the details on our website by Saturday morning,” said Brigadier V N Chaturvedi, spokesperson for Birla High School Boys and Sushila Birla High School for Girls.
“We will announce the new fees on Saturday on our website after we check the calculations by Friday night,” said Bratati Bhattacharya, spokesperson for Shri Shikshayatan School and Marwari Balika Vidyalaya.
All the schools that have revised their fees have already filed special leave petitions against the Calcutta High Court order, which is now being heard in the SC. But as the apex court did not stay the HC order on the 20% waiver in the interim order, the schools in unison said that for the time being, they were announcing their revised fees because they did not want to flout the HC deadline of October 31. If the final order of the SC indicates otherwise, they will re-work the structure.
Schools under Church of North India will not upload any revised structure on their websites right now. Twelve CNI schools, including La Martiniere for Boys and Girls, Pratt Memorial, St James’, St John’s Diocesan and St Thomas’ School Kidderpore, have filed a special leave petition in the SC and their matter has not come up for hearing yet. Legal counsel for CNI B P Tewari said the schools would not take any decision on fees till the matter came up for hearing in the Supreme Court.