Can #Cockroaches beat bandicoots
The movement has presently occupied the space pertaining to
large scale irregularity seen and perceived in the field of education in India,
particularly school education and the NEET examination.
While youngsters, educationists and parents alike are appalled about
the exposures, there remains a fundamental issue which has not got public
attention.
Article 21A was added to the Indian Constitution by the Eighty-Sixth
Constitutional Amendment Act, 2002.
It reads as below:
“21A. Right to education :
The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine.”
It officially came into force on December 12, 2002,
establishing the Right to Education as a Fundamental Right for all children
between the ages of 6 and 14. This provision was later operationalized with the
enactment of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act,
2009
When parents of a particular private school in Coimbatore, Tamil
Nadu, falling under the Matriculation Board, protested against steep hike in
school fees in the year 2009-10 and escalated the matter by way of a Writ
Petition in the Hon’ble High Court of Madras on the grounds of the above
Article 21 A, the State Government of Tamil Nadu gave an undertaking before the
Hon’ble Court to regulate the fees in the private schools under an Act of the
Legislature.
Accordingly the Tamil Nadu Schools (Regulation of
Collection of Fee) Act, 2009 was enacted.
It laid down the method of determining the fees in Private Schools in
the state, which had been considered out of bounds for the Legislature in view
of a Supreme Court Judgement in the TMA Pai case where it had been held that
due to the difference in infrastructure and salary structure differing between
schools, it will not be proper for a uniform fee structure to be prescribed for
private schools.
The Tamil Nadu Schools (Regulation of Collection of Fee)
Act, 2009 overcame the above issue by prescribing that fees for each school
will be determined by the Fee Determination Committee based on the data
pertaining to each school submitted by the schools and therefore will not be
uniform but will be commensurate to the expenditure of each school.
This was a mile stone legislation in the entire
country.
Accordingly when the Committee was constituted under the Act
and Schools were required to submit their expenditure data, the school management
committee Association challenged the legislation in the Hon’ble High Court of
Madras and upon losing it there went to the Hon’ble Supreme Court. By the time there also they lost, the last
date for submission of their records before the Committee (then Justice Govindarajan
Committee) was over and the Committee determined the fees based on the records
produced before them.
The schools which had refused to produce their records found
that the fees determined for them was far lesser than what they were already
collecting and again went to the Hon’ble High Court where a stay was granted by
a Single Judge to the fee determination by the Justice Govindarajan Committee.
When it was not found that the State Government was not
immediately coming to the defence of the Committee, Justice Govindarajan
resigned and there was a situation where there was no ‘determined fees’ and the
Single Judge had left it to the ‘Conscience of the Schools’.
When the Parents representatives who had wanted to intervene
in the proceedings before the Hon’ble Single Judge had not been allowed to do
so approached the Division Bench and got an order in their favour, the State
Government also filed an appeal against the Single Judge Order.
The Committee was reconstituted under Justice Singaravelan
and schools which had not submitted their records were allowed to submit them
within another fixed date and accordingly the determination was concluded.
But after these, most of the schools started going out of
the Matriculation Board and getting enrolled under the CBSE, to avoid the fee
determination by the above Committee under the Tamil Nadu Government.
The Hon’ble Supreme Court also through their interim order in
2016 upheld that the fee determination by the Committee appointed under the
Tamil Nadu Act will not be applicable to CBSE schools. Paper report
In this regard, the specific provisions of the Act of the
Tamil Nadu Government are as below:
1. (1) This Act may be called the Tamil Nadu Schools
(Regulation of Collection of Fee) Act, 2009. (2) It extends to the whole of the
State of Tamil Nadu.
2. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,—
(j) “private school” means any pre-primary school, primary
school, middle school, high school or higher secondary school, established and
administered or maintained by any person or body of persons and recognized or
approved by the competent authority under any law or code of regulation for the
time being in force, but does not include,—
(i) an aided school;
(ii) a school established and administered or maintained by
the Central Government or the State Government or any local authority;
(iii) a school giving, providing or imparting religious
instruction alone but not any other instructions;
7. (1) The powers and functions of the committee shall be,—
(a) to determine the fee to be collected by private schools;
(b) to hear complaints with regard to collection of fee in
excess of the fee determined by it or fixed by the Government, as the case may
be. If the committee, after obtaining the evidence and explanation from the management
of the private school or aided school concerned or from the Government school,
comes to the conclusion that the private school or the Government school or
aided school has collected fee in excess of the fee determined by the committee
or fixed by the Government, as the case may be, it shall recommend to the
appropriate competent authority for the cancellation of the recognition or
approval, as the case may be, of the private school or aided school or for any
other course of action as it deems fit in respect of the private school or
Government school or aided school.
(2) The committee shall have power to,—
(i) require each private school to place before the
committee the proposed fee structure of such school with all relevant documents
and books of accounts for scrutiny within such date as may be specified by the
committee;
(ii) verify whether the fee proposed by the private school
is justified and it does not amount to profiteering or charging of exorbitant
fee;
(iii) approve the fee structure or determine some other fee
which can be charged by the private school.
(3) The Committee shall have power to,—
(i) verify whether the fee collected by the School
affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education commensurate with the
facilities provided by the school;
(ii) to hear complaints with regard to collection of excess
fee by a school affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education; and
(iii) to recommend to the Central Board of Secondary
Education for disaffiliation of the school, if it comes to a conclusion that
the school has collected excess fee.
It is also pertinent to see what the Rules pertaining to CBSE school fees says.
Specific provisions are as below:
7.3 Fees shall be charged under the heads prescribed by the
Department of Education of the State/UTs.
7.6 The acts and regulations of the Central and State/UT
Governments enacted/framed in connection with regulation of fee in respected of
the various categories of the schools situated in the state will be applicable
to the school affiliated with CBSE also.
However, till date the State Government has not been
determining the fees for CBSE and other Boards other than Matriculation board
and hence, by the schools succeeding in coming out of the Matriculation Board
have succeeded in having their own fees.
When parents of these CBSE schools tried to take up the
matter with the State Government, the State Government directed all schools
including CBSE and other boards to display fees on the notice Board. Paper report.
The above is only for display of the fees. However, even that was objected to by the
managements of the Private Schools and taken to the Hon’ble High Court of
Madras. The Hon’ble High Court however
refused to stay the directions of the State Government in this regard. Paper report.
Yet, the question of fixing the fees in CBSE Schools in Tamil Nadu by the Government has not been achieved.
This being the case in a state where there is a legislation
for this purpose, in respect of other States and Union Territories, it is still
a far cry.
In the absence of this fundamental legislation, the very
purpose of Article 21 A of the Constitution continues to be a Mirage.
At the time of filing the Writ Petition before the Hon’ble
High Court by the Parents Association, I had asked the Sr. Advocate Shri. K.M. Vijayan
as to whether the Constitutional provision will not apply only the Government
run schools.
He said ‘the Constitution does not discriminate between
Private and Public Schools’.
His vision had subsequently been proved to be right by the
commitment of the Government to bring in a legislation.
But it has fallen short by not taking care of another
segment of the Private Schools.
Thereafter, if the real spirit of the Article 21 A of free
education is to be achieved, the State (whether Union or State of UT) should
either take over all Schools for imparting education of children from the age of
6 to 14 OR reimburse to their parents, whatever fees is being paid for such
students.
Only then the Right to Education as per the Constitution
brought in by the amendment in 2002 will be fulfilled.
It is a moot question whether #Cockroaches can win a battle
against bandicoots.
They require divine blessings.
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