Kathmandu, January 29

The Central Fee Fixation and Monitoring Committee today approved the Fee Fixation Criteria proposed by the Fee Fixation Technical Committee a couple of days ago.

A CFFMC meeting held today passed the criteria and decided to forward it to the Ministry of Education for implementation.

The Fee Fixation Criteria was drafted by the technical committee under the chairmanship of director general of DoE on the basis of an agreement between students’ unions and the government last year to make the fee fixation process more scientific.

Suprabhat Bhandari, president of Guardians Association Nepal who is also a member of CFFMC, today said the draft of the criteria will be forwarded to MoE for final go ahead after its approval from the committee.

“MoE needs to amend the Education Regulations to endorse the criteria fully, therefore we will send it to the ministry to take it to the Cabinet for amendment in the Education Regulations,” said Bhandari.

The Fee Fixation Criteria states that schools should allocate 60 per cent of its fund for salary of teachers and employees, 8 per cent for scholarship management, 1.5 per cent for Rural Education Development Fund and remaining 30.5 per cent for educational development programmes, paying rent of school building and bank loan.

The criteria has also increased the headings for fee collection to 15. Earlier, schools could charge students under 11 headings monthly fee, annual fee, admission fee, hostel fee, computers fee, transportation fee and fees for education tour, among others.

The criteria also talks about procedures for fee approval and fee endorsement where discussion with parents and teachers have been sought to be the most crucial aspect.

It further states that publishing of the approved fee structures on schools’ notice boards and websites should be made mandatory.

“The criteria has the provision of granting three years’ time to institutional schools that fail to meet basic criteria. If they fail to meet the criteria in the stipulated time, they would be either merged or shut down,” he said.

Bhandari demanded that the CFFMC scrap the Rural Education Development Fund as it has been limited in papers only, and contribute the 1.5 per cent fund allocated for REDF to scholarships and create a provision of granting interest on the deposit paid by students during their admission.

He also raised questions over various issues such as entrance system in Grade I and mushrooming of Montessori schools in the urban areas.