VADODARA: After protests by parents over steep fee hike in private schools, the Vadodara district education officer (DEO) on Friday issued a circular directing managements and principals of all private, self financed and non-granted schools of the district to keep fee hike for the academic year 2017-18 on hold.The directive has been sent to all the non-granted and private schools of the district including those affiliated to the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB), Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE), the International Baccalaureate (IB) and the Indian Certificate for Secondary Education (ICSE) board among others.The directive signed by DEO M L Ratnu states that since the state government is expected to soon pass the legislative bill to regulate fees of private schools, no school in the district should increase fees by 10 percent till the decision is taken."The state government is taking serious note of the issue. We have directed all schools to put fee hike on hold till the fee regulatory committee decides over it," Ratnu told TOI.The missive sent to the schools states that both the DEO and state education department has received number of complaints against steep fee hike introduced by the schools under the garb of tuition fees, academic session fees, school development fees without providing logical reason.There have also been complaints that students have been threatened that their admissions will be cancelled if they do not provide donations to the school, the circular states, adding that the directive should be strictly followed by the schools.There are over 350 private and non-granted schools affiliated to various boards in the district.The state government is mulling a new law, through which a fee regulatory committee, on the line of the present committee that regulates fees in professional higher education institutes, will be constituted. A committee constituted under a retired judge will regulate fees of private schools following the government norms.It is worth mentioning here that protest against fee hike have gone viral in the city. After parents of Billabong High International School, Ambe Vidyalaya, Karelibaug and Jai Ambe Vidyalaya, Manjalpur, Delhi Public School, Green Valley High School, now parents of Bright Day School's CBSE unit have also demanded a rollback of the fee hike introduced by the school.

Stay updated with all the Latest Vadodara headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.