JK News Today
Srinagar, Nov 07: Private Schools’ Association of Kashmir (PSAK) today offered to waive off the fee of all those students who were injured and those students who lost their close family members during the current turmoil.
In an Executive Council meeting at Srinagar, the association took number of decision to safeguard the interest of students.
“The current turmoil has been hard on all of us. We have decided to walk an extra mile to provide whatever relief we can provide to affected families. In this regard all the students who have been injured or those whose close family members were killed during this turmoil period should approach our association and we will waive off their fee,” said G N Var, president PSAK.
Association while condemning the burning of schools also offered to host all the affected students in their private schools till government makes some alternate arrangement. “Around 28 schools have been burnt and many students are affected. We offer to adjust all of the affected students in our private schools till government rebuilds their schools or makes some other arrangement,” said Var.
Regarding the Fee charged to students, the Association also took number of decisions. “There have been demands of fee concession in transport fee. Barring saving of fuel charges that is usually 15-20% of the transport charges we have spend on all accounts like salary to driver and conductor, monthly installments to banks and on maintenance of vehicles. Still we have decided to waive off 50 percent of the transport fee for the affected period,” said Var.
The Association clarified that 98 percent of the schools are economy class where fee is less than Rs 1000 and only 1-2 percent of schools are major schools which have fee in excess of that.
The Association said that there have been various attempts from various quarters to destroy the fledgling private schools in the state. Be it hidden agenda of RSS who want to impose their own hegemony in education or government policy to destroy private sectors, the private schools have to bear the brunt from all fronts.
“Private schools have already been in stress and during the last two years almost 150 private schools have been closed down,” said Var.