KATHMANDU: Though the first two months of the academic session of this year is about to elapse, the authorities concerned have not been able fix the fee structure for schools in Kathmandu and Bhaktapur districts because of the lack of consensus.

Despite having several rounds of formal and informal meetings, the Fee Fixation and Monitoring Committee (FFMC) of the two districts have not been able to fix the fee structure. Though the FFMC of the Kathmandu district has already fixed fee for primary and lower secondary schools, it has not been able to decide fee structure for the secondary level.

Gita Rana, president of National Private and Boarding Schools’ Association of Nepal (NPABSON), said the proposed fee structure for secondary level was not acceptable for them. “The proposed fee is insufficient for the schools to pay salary to their teachers at par with the government school’s teachers,” she said. Rana also accused the Department of Education (DoE) for interfering into the process. “The DoE rejected our earlier proposal and the new fee structure won’t be sufficient to meet the demands put forth by the Institutional School Teachers’ Union,” she maintained.

However, the DoE is hopeful of settling the issue at the earliest. Mahasharam Sharma, director general of DoE said, “I have been told that the informal meeting is about to finalise the issue. The next meeting may finalise it.” Sharma also cautioned the private schools to abide by the government’s rules and regulations and not force the authorities to take action.

Suprabhat Bhandari, president of Guardians’ Association of Nepal, said they had not been able to decide the fee structure because of the self-interests of private schools’ bodies. “We have proposed fee structure in a scientific way. But they have insisting to fix the fee in a mathematical way,” he added.

However, the FFMC in Lalitpur has fixed fee structure for the schools in the district. The fee structure for the ‘A’ category schools is Rs 1450 for secondary level, Rs 1140 for lower secondary and Rs 960 for primary school. Similarly, Rs 1337, Rs 950 and Rs 825 have been fixed for secondary, lower secondary and primary level respectively in ‘B’ category schools and Rs 990, Rs 760 and Rs 660 for secondary, lower secondary and primary level respectively in the ‘C’ category schools.