Chandigarh, June 3 (IANS) In a step aimed at ending arbitrary fee hikes by private schools, the Punjab government on Wednesday announced a regulatory framework that caps annual fee increases at five per cent, mandates refunds of excess fees collected from parents wherever schools breached the annual limit in the past three years and prescribed stringent penalties that can ultimately lead to cancellation of a school’s recognition.

The proposed legislation that Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann declared as the country’s toughest law against arbitrary fee hikes by private schools would be introduced in the upcoming Assembly session and would apply to all private schools across the state.

Significantly, the five per cent ceiling will cover not only tuition fees but all mandatory charges and funds collected by schools, closing avenues that institutions have often used to burden parents with additional costs.

Stating that the unchecked fee hikes were enabled by amendments introduced by the previous Congress Government in 2019, CM Mann said the new law would restore accountability in the education sector, protect parents from exploitation, and permanently end the harassment of children and families over school fees.

CM Mann said the fee structure of private unaided schools is currently governed by the Punjab Regulation of Fee of Unaided Educational Institutions Act, 2016, which was amended in 2019. However, he said the successive governments failed to implement the law effectively, allowing schools to impose excessive fee hikes on parents.

The Chief Minister said the government has decided to put a cap of five per cent on annual fee hikes so that no school can increase fees beyond this limit. “We will bring an Ordinance in this regard. Schools that have increased fees by more than 15 per cent during the past three years will face strict action. The original 2016 Act clearly stipulated that fee hikes should not exceed eight per cent of the previous year’s fee, but this provision was diluted through amendments introduced by the previous government.”

The Chief Minister said the 2019 amendment allowed schools to increase fees beyond the prescribed limit through a disclosure mechanism, which required schools to publicly display proposed fee hikes on notice boards, school websites, and the website of the Department of School Education before admissions commenced.

“Though the law mandated transparency regarding fee increases, these provisions were rarely implemented in practice. As a result, parents continued to face unjustified and excessive fee burdens,” he added.

–IANS

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