As schools reopen, managements cry foul over rising costs and fee payment delays

Note to readers: This is the final part of a three-part series on schools reopening in India amid the Coronavirus outbreak. The first part looked at why parents are concerned about sending their children back to physical classes and the second part looked at how teachers are having to bear the additional strain of taking multiple classes online and offline with no overtime pay. 

Dhanbad’s Bal Bhavan Vidya Mandir has 190 students studying from Classes IX-XII. However, school chairman Manoj Sinha said that close to 40 percent of the students have only paid half of the average Rs 75,000 annual fees. He claims this is delaying salary payment even as schools recently reopened amid the Coronavirus pandemic.

“If students don’t pay, how do we run the school? Reopening classes means that we also have to spend money to buy thermal scanners, which cost about Rs 50,000, as well as clean the premises several times a day with high-end cleaning chemicals,” said Sinha.

This is because schools across India have been forced to hire technical support for online lessons and also offer specialised training for teachers. It is a myth that we are overcharging parents during lockdown,” he added.

As schools slowly reopen across India, there are rising cost concerns among school authorities who allege that parents are seeking ‘hotel-like facilities’ but not willing to pay for them.

Fifty-year-old Sudharshan Singh, who runs two schools in Karnal district in Haryana, told Moneycontrol that average school expenses have increased by 30 percent due to the standard operating procedures issued by the education ministry.

“We have to bear the costs of everything, be it masks, hand sanitisers, temperature scanners. Schools are also being asked to hire additional administrative staff to manage social distancing within the premises. Costs are piling up,” he added.

India has 2 million schools of which 60 percent are estimated to be government schools and the rest are private schools and unaided institutions.

There are two camps in the picture: schools and parents. Parents allege that schools saved a lot on costs during the nine-month lockdown between March-November and hence should use the savings to pay for the infection-control measures.

Schools, on the other hand, are of the view that they aren’t charitable institutions to pay additional expenses without looking at the commercial aspect.

The economics of running a school

On an average, private schools incur annual expenses of about Rs 3 crore to 5 crore, depending on the size and number of students. The most prominent expenses include staff salaries (55 percent), stationery (10 percent), electricity expenses (20 percent) and school maintenance, including buildings and playgrounds (20 percent).

In 2020, it was only the electricity expense and stationery costs that got saved by the schools. Since classes are still being conducted online, staff salaries are paid as usual. And maintenance activity of school premises continues as usual.

Kolkata-based school principal Abhijit Dwivedi told Moneycontrol that there is a misconception that schools are sitting on excess cash and hence can afford infection-control.

“Tell me, if I have to buy three thermal scanners and also hire five to seven temporary staff for social distancing, sanitation at a basic salary of Rs 8,000-10,000 each, doesn’t the monthly cost go up substantially? How do we generate the revenue to pay?” he questioned.

His school is run by a Marwari trust and Dwivedi said that the board is also worried about rising expenses.

West Bengal is among the handful of States that hasn’t yet taken a decision on reopening schools amid the threat of Covid spreading. Dwivedi feels the more it is delayed, the better it is.

“The trustees have agreed that the only way to recuperate is by hiking fees as soon as physical classes resume. But I know that there will be a spate of protests and court cases filed immediately. What do we do? It is a question of survival,” he said.

Another looming expense is over school teachers seeking group health insurance schemes, which could cost anywhere between Rs 100-700 per person annually for a basic cover of Rs 3 lakh.

What parents say

Parents are upset that schools are talking about hiking fees and insist they should actually be making refunds, given that there have been no physical classes for much of the year, and consequently a reduction in the costs that the schools incur.

Pune-based Rajat Kapoor, the father of a student at an international school, said that there should be a 50 percent fee refund since no physical classes are being held. Kapoor has paid Rs 2.6 lakh for his son’s education this year.

“It is almost nine months since the school shut. We did get some token refund for the school bus, but that isn’t enough. There is no way that we will pay for any hike. Taking care of a child in school is their responsibility, be it during Covid or otherwise,” he said.

Some parents have their own struggles to deal with and these are taking a toll in their children’s education. Parthiv Gupta, from Indore, told Moneycontrol that parents like him, who have had to take a 20-30 percent pay cut, are not in a position to pay high school fees. His son’s name was suddenly removed from online classes in June after he paid the fee a month late. After a lot of meetings, the Class VII student was taken back in August.

How are schools managing costs?

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic and online classes, a slew of petitions had been filed in courts in Delhi, Gujarat and West Bengal on the issue of private schools demanding fees during the lockdown. All these petitions seek a reduction in school fees since classes are being held online.

Schools had resorted to removing students’ names from online classes if fees were not paid. With physical classes resuming, it is expected that this trend will continue in schools as well.

Meanwhile, there has been a slew of judgements by various high courts advising schools to refrain from abruptly hiking fees in the middle of the year and to wait till the next academic year. Schools, however, are not convinced.

Forty-eight-year-old Sravan Mishra, managing trustee at Sarla Prabha Memorial School in Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur, said there is a likelihood of schools shutting down permanently if parents do not cooperate.

“Courts can give advisories. But it is us who have to run the schools. If we keep incurring costs and are unable to pass it on in the form of fee hikes, we cannot be in this industry anymore. This will only be detrimental to schoolchildren,” he said.

Mishra said that the school has recently spent Rs 3 lakh in getting thermal scanners, masks, hand sanitisers and a cleaning robot and clarified that this in the hope that parents will be ready to pay the Rs 500 fee monthly hike from March 2021 onwards. Else, he is certain to close the school, which currently has 550 students.

Within the education industry, there are murmurs of up to 100,000 private schools shutting down across India amid the financial distress caused by the Coronavirus-induced lockdown.

With fee delays and infection-control adding on to overall costs, parents not agreeing to pay their share could be the final nail in the coffin for several schools on the verge of shutdown.