Mangaluru : Private schools under the aegis of Association of English Medium Schools in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi on Saturday urged the State government to reimburse the arrears of the fee related to admission of students under the Right to Education (RTE) Act.

Talking to reporters, association president Y. Mohammed Beary said the State government has not cleared the arrears for the last two years. “The 400 private schools in two districts have to get around ₹2 crore,” he said and added that the overall arrears that the government has to pay to schools in the State is around ₹1,200 crore.

Mr. Beary said arrears have made the school managements like his, who collect annual fees of about ₹20,000 from a student, hard to function. Due to lockdown from March the schools could not conduct annual examinations and hence they could not collect pending fees from parents.

General secretary of the association K. Ravindra Shetty said the schools are unable to pay teachers as per the 6th wage board recommendation. “If we have to pay teachers as per the recommendation, we need to collect fees of around ₹80,000 per student,” he said. Despite hardship, the schools are paying a salary of ₹36,000 per month to high school teachers, while ₹23,000 per month is being paid to primary school teachers.

Mr. Shetty said the State government should announce a package for teachers and ensure they are paid reasonable amount to overcome the shortfall in their salary. Apart from clearing the pending fees reimbursement, the government should restore the earlier RTE scheme and allow admission of students in private schools, he said.

RTE scheme

Some private schools in Dakshina Kannada stopped RTE schemes as they applying under minority benefits. Private schools must allow RTE schemes for poor students.