Ramnath N Pai Raikar / NHT

Panaji, Jun 15: Following increasing complaints from parents as regards charging of exorbitant fees by the pre-primary schools around Goa, the department of education (DoE) will soon ask the free-structure committee to finalise a fee structure for such schools, after taking the parents and school managements into confidence.

Coming out with this information, the Education Minister, Mr Atanasio Monserrate told ‘The Navhind Times’ on Monday that after receiving complaints from parents that the city-based Mushtifund School was charging extra fees from its pre-primary students, the school management was directed to refund the extra money collected. "There needs to be a control over the fees of the pre-primary schools," he added.

As per a survey, there are over 600 private pre-primary schools operating in the state, some of which are even functioning from apartments, thus making it difficult to locate them.

Meanwhile, the secretary for education, Dr M Modassir on Monday said that the department of education has already dispatched circulars to all pre-primary schools stating that the hike of fees was not applicable to them and was to be implemented for only primary schools onwards.

Speaking to this daily, the secretary for education said that he however, did not meet the parents of the pre-primary students who are agitated over charging of exorbitant fees by the pre-primary schools. It may be recalled that the parents of various pre-primary schools around Goa had agitated last week against the schools for suddenly hiking their monthly fees from Rs 800 to Rs 1,350. These parents opposed the monthly increase of Rs 550 in the fees, stating that there was no such circular in force.

The state law department had recently advised the department of education that the existing Goa School Education Rules, 1986, were adequate enough to bring the pre-primary schools in the state under the ambit of the education department, which would allow the DoE to enforce compulsory registration for such schools from this academic year. It would also be mandatory to obtain the DoE’s nod while setting up new pre-primary schools in Goa.

The DoE has also fixed the distance at which pre-primary schools should be located from one another and is in the process of preparing uniform syllabus for pre-primary schools through the State Council for Education Research and Training.