Bhaktapur, January 27

Fee Fixation Technical Committee, under the coordination of director of Department of Education, today finalised the Proposed Criteria for Fee Fixation to simplify the fee fixation process and make it scientific.

Baikuntha Aryal, coordinator of FFTC, said the criteria was fixed today as per the agreement reached between student unions and DoE last year on fee fixation in a scientific way.

He said, “Such criteria will help develop base for collecting fee from parents and indicators for fee increment as well as effective monitoring.”

Sarita Aryal, vice president of Guardians’ Association Nepal and a member of technical committee, said schools should spend 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 buildings and bank loan as well as for institutional development of the schools as per the proposed criteria.

Earlier, schools could charge students under 11 heading, including monthly fee, annual fee, admission fee, hostel fee, computers fee, transportation fee and fees for education tour, among others.

The committee today proposed to increase the fee headings to 15. The committee further developed the procedures for fee approval and fee endorsement.

As per the new procedure, the schools need to prepare the fee ceiling of every class by mid-December every year, said Aryal.

The schools must unveil fee structure among teachers and guardians by the first week of mid December, and discuss the same with them to prepare a final list to be presented to the District Education Office.

Similarly, the schools must submit the final fee ceiling at DEOs of the concerned districts by the first week of January.

After the fee ceiling is approved from DEO, the approved list of fee structure must be published on the notice board of every school. Aryal said, “If any school runs a website, the fee structure should be published on the website too.”

According to the committee, the schools can charge approved monthly fee for 12 months. Admission fee should not be more a month’s tuition fee of the same class.

Similarly, the annual examination fee should be maximum 50 per cent of tuition fee of a month.

The committee also determined the responsibilities and accountabilities of schools, teachers, guardians, students’ unions, resource persons, and DEOs, among others.