Parents wield RTI to verify schools' expense claims on expenses

Times of India: Navi Mumbai: Friday, September 27, 2013.

Parents in some city schools have found the Right to Information Act (RTI) a useful tool to aid their fight against school managements indiscriminately hiking tuition fees.

Sources in the NMMC education department said this year alone the civic body received three RTI appeals seeking information on the audited balance sheets of schools that initiated fee hikes.

RTI applications on a specific school are to be filed with the school and responded by the principal. If a satisfactory answer is not received, the applicant can file an appeal with the education officer. The application for information on a trust has to be filed with the charity commissioner.

"The school is running a loss is a common reason given by managements to justify fee hikes. But when these managements are asked to table their accounts, they consider it an intrusion into their affairs. Parents are left with no option but to seek the answers through legal means," said AK Pandey, president, All-India Federation of PTA.

Parents from New Horizon Scholars in Airoli are waiting for a response to their RTI application filed with the charity commissioner for the audit reports of the trust. "We are expecting a response to the RTI on September 28 and it should shed some light into the repeated claims made by the management about incurring huge expenses and overheads to run the school," said a parent who did not want to be named. NMMC officials confirmed receiving the request on August 12.

Parents of students at VPM International School, Airoli, say a recent RTI application has a shown that the school had made a profit of about Rs37 lakh in the last financial year ended March 31, 2012. A copy of the RTI response is with this paper.

They alleged that the school had been claiming losses and "hiked the fees on this basis." The school had threatened to suspend the wards of agitating parents, a parent said on the condition of anonymity.

Sandhya Sondhur, principal of the school said, "The difference in the balance sheet is because not every aspect of the payments made by the school has been reflected. Besides, These parents are free to take their wards for admission elsewhere."

Amberish Patnigere, the deputy municipal commissioner in charge of the education department said in such cases parents will have to seek legal recourse for their problems.