Ceilings on school fees uncertain

KATHMANDU, Feb 12: Fixing of ceilings on monthly tuition fees charged by private schools as stipulated in the newly amended education regulations appears unlikely for the new academic session, which will kick off from mid April.

As per the recently amended education regulations passed by the cabinet in the first week of January, the District Fees Fixation Committees (DFFCs), coordinated by District Education Officers (DEOs) with members from Private and Boarding Schools´ Organization of Nepal (PABSON) and National Private and Boarding Schools´ Organization of Nepal (N-PABSON) must fix ceilings on monthly fees three months before the new academic session starts.


However, with just two months left for the new session to begin, none of the DFFCs has fixed the ceilings. Officials at District Education Offices (DEOs) say the uncertainty over ceilings is largely due to the delay in publishing the recently amended regulation in gazettes.

"We were supposed to fix ceilings three months before the new session," a DEO official told Republica. "However, the amended regulations were officially made available only less than three months before the start of the new session."

According to the new education regulations, the DFFCs can set different ceilings for schools in different categories. The DFFCs have divided all private schools into four categories in terms of facilities they provide. Currently, even within the same category, schools have been charging different monthly fees. If the ceilings come into effect, private schools should propose fee-hike not exceeding the ceiling.

However, many private schools have already submitted their proposals to their respective DFFCS, well before the introduction of the ceilings.

The Central Fee Monitoring Committee (CFMC), headed by the Director General of the Department of Education (DoE) Dr Lab Dev Awasthi, is holding a series of meetings to decide whether the DFFCS can fix the fees without following the recently amended regulations.

"The CFMC has already held two rounds of meetings in the past week," said Dilli Rimal, director at the DoE. "The CFMC will hopefully take the final decision to this effect next week."

Previously, there were no provisions at all for ceilings on fees. Private Schools would submit their proposals to the DFFCs for fee-hike two months before the start of the new session. The new provision was introduced following complaints against arbitrary fees-hike by private schools.

Various student unions had long been pressing the government to fix ceilings on fees charged by private schools.

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