KV Network

No hard stance

No hard stance
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Since the Covid-19 pandemic forced closure of all commercial and other activities including education since March this year, various issue have cropped up as the time has progressed towards unleashing of an unlock by the government.

Almost every day debates and arguments are being raised by various quarters over the status of education as almost all the physical modes of seeking education have come to a grinding halt. However, off late various schools in metros and other cities started the online mode of education following which the schools have also started asking the parents to deposit the monthly tuition and other fees.

However, the situation has led to cropping up of various issues including a concern raised by many parents’ bodies that most of the parents have witnessed loss of livelihoods and in such kind of a situation asking for fee by the schools is not feasible and justified.

Though many solutions have been tried for arriving at a procedure to work out some compromise on the fee issue but so far no such deal has reached a level that could have been implemented.

Now the situation has taken another turn after various parent’s bodies approached the apex court seeking deferment/moratorium on school fees for the COVID-19 lockdown period. However, the court refused to entertain the plea by parents from different states.

The plea had cited the reason that after COVID-19 disease was declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization, on March 25, 2020, a country wide lockdown was announced whereby all the activities including the educational sector were shut down completely having a catastrophic effect over the economy of the country with many people losing their jobs or getting a deducted or nil income and facing immense sufferings in their daily life.

The apex court pointed out that since problems in each state are different. Parties are involving jurisdiction of the apex court as an omnibus case.

The SC’s stance that parents can approach state high courts for seeking redressal on the fee issue has only made things worse. Since the parent’s bodies have been adamant on fee waiver for all categories, this stand will complicate things further.

The need of the hour is to achieve a workable solution so that the schools too are not made to suffer as non compliance on the part of the parents regarding deposition of fee in school will also lead to a crisis like situation.

Since all the schools have a good number of staffers (teaching as well as administrative) holding back the fee by the parents will spell disaster for them all.

The parents have to accept the fact that those persons whose livelihoods were not impacted by the pandemic need to deposit the fee without any delay. Rest of the parents who have faced either salary cuts or loss of jobs altogether should also be taken on board and provided relief accordingly.

Resorting to extreme positions will complicate matters rather than solving any. So finding and working on a middle path should be our priority.


KV Network

Kashmir Vision cover all daily updates for the newspaper

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