Kathmandu, June 19:

The government will resume inspection of private schools in the valley from next week. The inspections were stalled due to the strike called by school teachers.

The inspection aims at checking the ‘exorbitant’ fees being allegedly charged by the schools.

The Department of Education (DoE), in April, had formed five teams to inspect the private schools in Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur.

The team had inspected 63 selected schools in the valley and found out that 44 per cent of them had charged exorbitant fees, with the approval of the district education offices (DEO).

Janardan Nepal, director general of the DoE, said, “The schools have to submit the proposed fee structure to the DEO a month before the beginning of the academic year, to be evaluated by the fee monitoring committee headed by district education officer along with the representatives of private schools.”

He added that the team couldn’t continue monitoring schools due to the agitation of teachers’ unions.The monitoring team will also see whether the schools are providing enough scholarships to the marginalised, victims of conflict and Dalit students.

According to Nepal, it was found that many schools had not given scholarships as per the agreement with the government and the student unions.

“We need to have a meeting with the schools on the issue of scholarships,” Nepal added.