Small family, two young children, have a decent job, have purchased a house/apartment with hard earned money/savings. Want children to get the best education possible, find quite a decent school nearby affiliated with ICSE. Infrastructure seems better than average school. Teachers seem quite pleasant. School boasts of a great curriculum, fantastic teacher student ratio, lots of focus on sports and extra curricular programs. The annual fee and admission fee seems a bit high than expected - but hey, it is for the good bringing of your children. You and spouse discuss, decide to cut on some expenses and think this is the best option for your child.
Story seems familiar? Well if you are a parent of young child(ren) like me, the above is pretty much same for every middle class parent, anywhere in urban India. So far so good, read further and see if there are more similarities.
A year or two goes by. The swimming pool the School had promised isn't constructed - Big deal, you didn't anyway expect your child to become the national champion in swimming... The fee has increased by 12% the first year, 18% the next year.. Your child has learnt a fantastic vocabulary of English words, you have got a few increments, become a manager and have chances of becoming senior manager in few years. You can now afford a small size car.. Yes, school fees have increased, so has your annual package - so who cares? The teachers are mostly good in this School. Some smile at you, some avoid looking at you. Some mothers grumble that uniforms stitched are of poor quality. Shoe soles are ripping off after a few months (BTW you have to purchase uniform, shoes, books etc. from the School only, no other choice). Big deal - it minimized your work of going around. Again it costed a few extra bucks but hey, it was very convenient wasn't it - for the School to be a one stop shop ? If some parents are grumbling about a few bad apples (rude teachers), tough luck. Quality is not guaranteed anywhere. Even in your own IT company, there are few bad apples. Some parents complain saying management is not responsive they are trying to collectively approach the principal/management on issues but School avoids mass confrontation/discussion. Prinicipal talks to parents only on one-to-one basis. He/She says bring the issue to me with your child/teacher, I'll address. You adjust, avoid the bad ones and move one ... that is life - just stay out of trouble. All this talk of parent association is really not required. As long as you can talk to the principal, as long as teachers are nice to you, as long as your child is getting reasonably good grades and learning new words, sentences, everything is hunky-dory-peachy.
Then one day, something happens to the whole world - "Recession" ! Actually the storm clouds were gathering for quite some time. You just thought you were protected and wouldn't be affected.
Your company is laying off people left and right. You can kiss the bonus/increment you were counting on for an upgrade to a mid-size/big-size car bye bye. In fact, you might be asked to take a pay cut. You had made a down payment for a second apartment/plot thinking it was a nice investment by taking an additional loan - now you aren't really sure.
By the by, the School just announced its revised fee structure for the next year. Your two children's fee has gone up by 36% - each. You and fellow parents are furious - you try to talk to the management/principal/sundry about how unjustified this fee hike is. The management says "Owing to the increase in cost of operation, teachers' salaries and facilities planned for the future, this fee hike is unavoidable. The management has thought about the fee hike and its decision is final. If this is not acceptable, you can take the Transfer certificate for your child in the next week".
Bubba, welcome to a sudden nightmare amidst your sweet dreams about being a good, providing parent. Now scratch your head and ponder on the following..
- What are the parental rights when you send your children to a private school.
- The private school your child goes is managed by a "trust". Who trusts what? Does that mean the Govt. completely trusts this management and they are outside the purview of taxation, general accounting principles etc. Where does all the money go?
- Do you have any right to information in terms of its accountability, transparency and committments of the school management/administration.
- Can the school be treated as any other commercial organization and you being an indirect consumer of the services offered, challenge the school management in consumer court?
- The school has never given you anything in writing about what they had promised during your interview/feedback sessions. What are your options?
- The school management actually has powerful political/media backing. So what are you going to do?
- Taking out your children from this school and putting in another is really not an option. Because the same story is going to repeat again in another school too. You will have to again pay admission fee (donation) plus annual fee. Mostly all schools have big political/media/public persona behind the scene. Who knows this school might be far better than the one you are seeking next.
- Is this just a hyper-reaction. Justify/rationalize school fee hike as a manifestation of "free market economy" and be satisfied that nothing is wrong. After all, you are paying as per market rates. If you don't like it at the rate offered, don't buy it (but then what is the alternative? Govt./Aided Schools? ).
- Just "Shut up and pay?" (think of the Shilpa Shetty's act at the beginning of Dostana, just make up new lyrics and sing along and move on).
- Try make this an election issue and get your friendly neighborhood politician to help you out of this conundrum (and that hope he doesn't indirectly own or have a stake in the school).
