Hyderabad: As private school fees continue to soar, Hyderabad has emerged as one of the country’s leading cities for fee-related disputes, accounting for one of the highest shares of complaints received by the India Wide Parents Association (IWPA).“Majority complaints come to us from Hyderabad parents,” said Anubha Sahai, president of IWPA, adding how Bengaluru isn’t too far behind. “The grievance is the same – abnormally steep hike in fee. Parents allege that many schools in the city increase their fees by 40% to 50%, owing to no regulation. In fact, unofficially, we have even heard of a 100% hike in some Hyderabad schools,” Sahai added.By comparison, school fee hikes across most metro cities typically range from 10% to 30%.
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Fee rivals home loan EMISeveral families told TOI how the cost of schooling has quietly crept up to rival their biggest fixed expenses – in some cases their home loan.“Our housing loan EMI is around Rs 40,000 a month, while our daughter’s school fee is about Rs 22,000 a month. When we left India in 2016, schooling wasn’t this expensive. We are stunned to see how it’s shot up in 10 years,” said Sneha Khilwani, who recently moved back to Hyderabad from Canada with her family. She pays over Rs 3 lakh per year, including transport and food, for her seven-year-old daughter. “In fact, so high was the fee that even though we were initially considering Cambridge for her, we eventually settled for CBSE,” she added.Another parent from Petbasheerabad said her family was blindsided by a steep fee revision. “Last year, we paid around Rs 23,000 for one child and about Rs 22,000 for another – both in primary school. This year, the fees have been revised to Rs 40,000 and Rs 58,000 respectively. We were not prepared for such an increase and are now financially strained,” the parent said. Based on receipts shared by the parent, the fee for one child increased by about 74%, while that for the other rose by around 164%.‘Strengthen govt schools’“This unhealthy trend has pushed education out of the reach for anyone outside the upper middle class,” rued retd IAS officer and education expert Akunuri Murali. He added: “There are families I have met who spend 50% of their monthly income on school fees. Gig workers are working twice as hard to pay the children’s fees as everybody wants to send their kids to private schools.”According to him, the solution lies in fixing the standard of govt schools. “Both the state and central govt allocate the lowest budget for education. Instead, if govt schools were built properly, people would never have to depend on private ones. Govts have to spend time understanding urban needs and categorising fees for schools developed in certain areas. But that requires effort,” he said, pointing out how the Telangana Education Commission’s suggestions on fee regulation haven’t been implemented even after a year.Many parents resonate with these lapses but stay quiet out of fear. “Parents worry that if they question schools, their children may be targeted. They don’t have many alternatives because govt schools are limited and everyone cannot get admission into Kendriya Vidyalayas or similar institutions,” Sahai said.Transparency is another concern. BVK Kishore of the Hyderabad Private Schools Parents’ Association said many international schools in the city do not publish their fee structures online, making it hard for families to compare costs before admission. “This is against the rulebook but, sadly, no action is taken against them,” he said.‘Parents compare wrong numbers’Private school managements, however, say parents often compare the wrong numbers. Praveen Raju, president of the Independent Schools Management Association, said the apparent jump in fees often comes from slab changes between school stages, not arbitrary year-on-year hikes. “Parents know the fee when they admit their child. The issue is not regulating school fees but regulating annual fee hikes. Most schools increase fees by around 8% to 10%, while the apparent jump to 20% to 25% often happens because of slab changes between stages such as pre-primary, primary and middle school. Unreasonable hikes should certainly be regulated, but fee structures and annual hikes are two different things,” he said.
