Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Mar 30: Associated Managements of English Medium Schools in Karnataka (KAMS) has urged the state government to refund right to education (RTE) fee for the year 2019-20 as private educational institutions are facing financial crunch on account of prolonged emergency coronavirus holidays.

The organization said that out of schools which admitted 25 per cent students through Right to Education Act, the government is yet to make payment of a portion of the fee for the year 2018-19 whereas for the year 2019-20, the entire amount is pending with the government "About Rs 1,300 crore is pending payment. As the holidays were announced all of a sudden, salary and other perks have to be paid to the staff. Moreover, the schools are finding it hard to meet other expenses," KAMS said while urging the government to release the funds soon.

KAMS also has asked the government to convince the concerned departments to grant employees state insurance, employees provident fund and professional tax exemption for educational institutions for the next three months.

General secretary of the organization, D Shashikumar, said that many educational institutions are facing a financial crisis and condemned the government's instruction to pay next year's fee entirely this year itself. He asked the officials to show humane qualities and said that it would be wrong to treat all educational institutions with suspicion because of a few which have flouted rules.