Ordinance to curb fee hike in private schools cleared by Delhi Cabinet

Indian Express

a day ago

The Delhi Cabinet on Tuesday approved the Ordinance aimed at curbing arbitrary fee hikes in private schools — a move that the government says will bring long-awaited relief to lakhs of students and their families in the Capital.
'The Ordinance will curb arbitrary fee collection by private schools. The previous governments did nothing to check exploitative hikes by these schools,' Delhi Education Minister Ashish Sood said at a press conference.
The Ordinance, titled 'The Delhi School Education (Transparency in Fixation and Regulation of Fees) Ordinance 2025,' was approved during the eighth meeting of the Cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Tuesday. The government had earlier prepared a draft of the Bill, which was due to be presented in May in the Assembly during the second half of the Budget session. However, the session was later cancelled.
Once enacted, following President Droupadi Murmu's nod, the Ordinance will prevent private schools from raising fees without oversight and will apply retroactively from April 1 this year, the government said.'This retrospective provision will especially benefit those parents who were pressured into paying exorbitant and unjustified fees,' Sood said.
He described the Ordinance as a 'major move towards ending financial exploitation of hardworking parents and ensuring greater transparency in the education system'.
This is the first major education-related law that the Delhi government has pursued in nearly 27 years, the ruling party claimed. 'Today's decision stands out as a major step towards ending exploitative fee collection practices by private schools,' the government said.
The move, said Sood, is aligned with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas' (development for all). The Minister promised that the Ordinance would 'secure the future of children studying in private schools.'
The Education Minister was critical of the previous Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) administration, accusing it of failing to check fee exploitation. 'During the tenure of previous governments, particularly the AAP, parents of children studying in private schools were repeatedly subjected to financial exploitation,' Sood said.
'Today, the BJP government in Delhi has taken a landmark decision to end this longstanding injustice,' he added.
Earlier, the AAP too had criticised the BJP government for failing to check fee hikes after the party came to power in February.
Once implemented, the Ordinance is expected to apply to all 1,677 private schools in Delhi, according to the Education Minister. 'This is a historic day for Delhi's middle-class families,' he added.