Kathmandu, May 3 A monitoring team formed under the coordination of Department of Education has started monitoring private schools in the Valley. The monitoring team comprising representatives from the DoE, Private and Boarding Schools Organisation Nepal, National Private and Boarding Schools’ Association Nepal, Guardians Association Nepal and Nepal National Guardians’ Association monitored two schools in Kathmandu district today. Bal Bahadur Karki, deputy director, DoE, today said they visited Kasthamandap School and Holy Vision Higher Secondary School to check if they were following the Institutional School Fee Fixation Directives 2016. “The schools were selected on the basis of complaints filed against them,” he said, adding, “We will monitor around seven schools in the Kathmandu Valley in the first phase.” He also said that they would recommend the schools for action if found violating the directives. GAN president Suprabhat Bhandari, who is also one of the members of the monitoring team, said they began monitoring schools from today. “Interestingly, both the schools we visited today had taken consent from parents before hiking fees. Kasthamandap had acquired consent letters from all parents, while Holy Vision school had got its fee structure approved through a parents’ assembly,” he said, adding, “Though they have taken consent from parents, the fees are above the mark set by the government. Therefore, we advised them to bring down the fees.” Meanwhile, student unions today decided to jointly monitor private schools from tomorrow. A meeting of 13-student unions aligned to various political parties decided to monitor implementation of the government directive by schools. UP Lamichhane, spokesperson, Nepal Student Union, said, “Student unions have formed 13 teams led by their respective presidents to monitor schools.” They claimed schools were charging 30 times more than fee structure prescribed by the government. The meeting also decided to draw the attention of the prime minister and the finance minister to increase the education budget.