Some 60 parents of students studying at Karma Academy in Paro expressed disappointment with the school charging an additional fee. The school had levied fees for an additional two and a half months due to the extension of the academic year 2020. They have put up a complaint against the school to the Office of Consumer Protection.
According to the parents, the school charged an additional fee of Nu 14,450 for the Science stream and Nu 12,366 for Commerce and Arts students for the additional two and half months. They said there was neither proper verbal nor written justification for the collection of the additional fees.
According to a parent, the additional fee charged by the school for the extended academic year is unreasonable since “the academic year is from the day a student starts his/her classes until he/she graduates from that particular standard. But I don’t know how the school calculated the academic year and on what basis the school arrived at the conclusion of charging extra fees when the academic year is still not over,” said Rinzin, a parent.
He said the parents even approached the education ministry for interventions but the ministry’s proposal for a concession was declined by the proprietor. “So if the proprietor does not want to cooperate, the parents feel that the government needs to intervene,” she added.
“According to the proprietor, the reason for charging the extra fee is because he had to pay a tax of some Nu 4.5 M and he constructed a road. Moreover, he said it’s been four years since the school last increased the fee. So he got the permission to increase the fee this time,” said Chencho Dema, a parent.
Karma Choden, another parent said such a decision to charge extra fees should pass through the school management board. She said Karma Academy has no management board. “And we were not at all included when they decided upon the fees. And following the failed negotiation with the proprietor, we approached the education ministry and it seems like even the education ministry failed to negotiate with the proprietor. And now we are a little bit confused because if the regulatory body cannot regulate them, who is going to regulate them? These things may keep on happening, so who is going to look after the welfare of the people?” she raised her concern.
On the other hand, the proprietor said, from more than 530 students, over 50 per cent of the parents have already paid the fees for the extended months. Moreover, the fees levied are as per the education ministry’s approved rates.
“For Arts and Commerce, our fee structure is Nu 80,000 divided by 12 months and the two and half extended months. Similarly with Science actually our fee is Nu 95,000 but we charged Nu 90,000. When we break down the amount into 12 months and multiply by two and half additional months, it comes to over Nu 14,000 for science and over Nu 12,000 for the rest. Not all but a few of the parents say they can only pay the amount which the government released for the government-funded students which is Nu 6,000. But this amount of Nu 6,000 is the government’s fees for day scholars in 2019,” said Karma Wangchuk, the Proprietor of Karma Academy in Paro.
The education ministry paid an additional Nu 6,250 as tuition fees for class XII government scholarship beneficiaries to the private schools at the rate of approved tuition fees of Nu 30,000 a year. The additional fee was calculated based on the academic year extended. The tuition fee collection for one year is calculated for 12 months and boarding fees collection for one academic year is calculated for 10 months.
“Parents felt that their collection was quite huge. But compared to our calculation their collection will be high because the approved fee structure for other students is higher than the fee structure which we pay to the students under government scholarship. So that was the reason why parents were not happy with the collection. Since the school has followed our calculation, we didn’t find any issues in this because they didn’t collect more than what was supposed. So they have calculated and collected based on the fee structure approved by the ministry of education,” said Dorji Wangchuk, the Chief Programme Officer of Private School Division with the Dept of School Education under the education ministry.
The Chief added that the ministry tried to negotiate and propose a concession which the proprietor declined.
Meanwhile, the Office of Consumer Protection is investigating the case.
Namgay Wangchuk & Sonam Pem
