Wednesday, 30 September 2020 | PNS | Dehradun
Several parents associated with Uttarakhand Abhibhavak Sangh (UAS) accused the chief education officer (CEO) of Dehradun of pressurising the parents to deposit school fees and favouring the management of private schools over the welfare of children and parents. According to the president of UAS, Ram Kumar Singhal, many parents have complained to him that when they approach CEO, Asha Rani Painuly, she asked parents whether they deposited the school fee or not and if they hadn’t, she instructed them to submit the fee first. “Initially parents used to file their complaints through the association but Painuly recently instructed that she will listen to the complaint of every parent individually which makes it easier to put pressure on parents,” stated Singhal. According to a local resident, Mahesh Sharma, “I could not deposit the fee of my child’s new class so I told the school management that I will deposit fee in the installments but they denied him admission stating that if I do not want to deposit fee, I should admit my child to a government school. I even brought a signed letter by MLA Ganesh Joshi to the CEO stating that I should be allowed to deposit fees in three installments due to my financial instability at the moment but she told me to deposit the fee as per the school management. We are facing a severe financial crisis due to the lockdown but for the sake of my child’s future, I had to take a loan to deposit the school fee.” Meanwhile, the CEO rejected all the allegations as baseless. She said, “Levelling accusations against anyone is easy. I am just doing my job and if anyone has any issue they can write me a complaint letter regarding their issues and I will definitely consider it,” stated Painuly.
