West Bengal Education MinisterPartha Chatterjee has "for the second time" asked the state's private educational institutes to refrain from hiking fees for the new academic session, amid the COVID-19 crisis.In a message to the authorities of private institutes on Thursday, Chatterjee cautioned against any move to stop online lessons to students who have defaulted on fee payment due to "economic hardships".Taking to Facebook, the minister said, "I am informing the private schools for the second time not to go ahead with any fee hike at present. Any decision to debar those, who could not pay existing fee due to economic hardships, from online class facility is also unacceptable."Everyone should be given such facility and there should be no discrimination on this issue," the minister said.The minister hoped that private schools would not exert any pressure on the parents."The government has taken a strong view in this matter. We hope the private schools will act accordingly, keeping in mind the government's stand on this issue. We hope they will refrain from exerting mental pressure on the guardians," Chatterjee said in his post.Earlier, too, the minister had made an appeal to private schools for not effecting a fee hike this year in view of the crisis triggered by the contagion.The school education department had on April 10 issued a notification in this regard, asking the institutes to be "sympathetic" towards parents, amid the difficulties faced by them during the lockdown.The very next day, private schools such as South Point, DPS North Kolkata announced that they have decided to put on hold their decision to hike fees. A few schools also extended deadlines for fee payment.Several other institutes in the city, however, were yet to announce any such concession.The principal of a prominent private school, when asked about concession, said the decision to hike fees was taken sometime last year, and rolling it back at this juncture is near impossible."Also, salary of the teaching and non-teaching staff at most private schools come from the fees paid by the students. We have to give our staff members a hike, too," she said.
