The Delhi government has initiated investigation into accounts of private, unaided recognised schools which have submitted proposals to the education department to hike tuition fees.
It said by doing this it was fulfilling its promise of reforming school education in a bid to end arbitrary fee hikes.
The exercise will be conducted by an empanelled chartered accountancy firm, under the Ernst & Young Foundation, and the report will be submitted to the city government in the second week of August. The education department has already received 97 proposals from various such schools for increasing the fee.
Addressing a group of chartered accountants at an interaction today, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, "Education is a top priority for the Delhi government and our objective is to ensure that education is not commercialised and parents and students are not exploited by a few unscrupulous private managements."
He termed the probe exercise as "an investigation and not an audit". Calling it a "pioneering effort", Kejriwal said, "I hope this exercise will benefit citizens of Delhi and give new direction to the nation."
Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Manish Sisodia sought to clarify that the state government did not want to "control" private schools but only wanted the schools to abide by the directives of the department.
Sisodia said schools that were allotted land at concessional rates cannot raise rate of tuition fee without prior sanction of the Director of Education. The Delhi High Court in its order of January 19 had stated that unaided schools cannot flout the law.
"Our government believes that education is a service. It should not be a business activity," he said.
The exercise will include review of financial statements of the unaided schools for the finacial years 2013-2014, 2014-2015 and 2015-2016, identifying cases of "misappropriation or diversion of funds including field visits to the schools".
