[Tongam Rina]
ITANAGAR, 26 Oct: A group of parents from Arunachal Pradesh has claimed that Bengaluru’s Emerald International School, affiliated to the Central Board of School Education, has refused to reimburse more than Rs 10 lakhs paid as school fees for four students. The fees were paid early this year.
The parents have sent a legal notice to the school management.
The legal notice, on behalf of three pairs of parents, has demanded immediate reimbursement of fees, totaling more than Rs 10 lakhs, for four students, as well as compensation of Rs 1 lakh each. The four students were withdrawn soon after admission as the school was found to be lacking in providing education and failed to live up to the promises made during the admission, according to the parents.
The legal notice claims that the school failed to adhere to the promises made during the admission process. The parents have alleged frequent changes in the school’s top management, high attrition rates among teachers leading to instability, inadequate qualifications and experience among the teaching staff, unfulfilled promises of facilities and infrastructure, unprofessional behaviour exhibited by some school staff members, and a lack of response from the school management to the parents’ concerns.
The parents say that they were compelled to withdraw their children and look for new schools when most schools had already closed fresh admissions, making it traumatic for both parents and children. The parents claim that they never signed any agreement nor received any verbal notification about fee non-reimbursement in case of withdrawal from Emerald International School.
Two individuals, including one parent from Arunachal, reportedly received a 75 percent refund of their fees.
Five sets of parents, with a total of seven children, all from Arunachal, withdrew their children from the school altogether in August. These children were admitted to the school in March but were sent home on holiday for more than a month in May.
The children also lost the items they had kept with the school authorities while they were home for vacation, forcing one of the parents to lodge a complaint, which was acknowledged by the school.
One of the parents said that she was subjected to racial discrimination, refused entry into the school, and verbally abused by the school’s security personnel when she went to discuss fee refunds and collect her children’s documents.
She was eventually allowed entry after police intervention but was made to wait even longer and subjected to verbal abuse from the school staffers. She mentioned that the school’s director was rude to her.
“I returned to the school after assurances from the police, but even then I was made to wait for an additional 30 minutes at the gate, during which some junior staff members verbally abused me, saying that I should go back to the Northeast and return to the jungles. It is clear that I was singled out and discriminated against solely because of my being a woman, and a tribal woman at that,” she said.
The parents have said that they will not stop “until justice is served to prevent such malpractices and cheating from recurring with people from the Northeast region and elsewhere.”
The parents have said that “the school’s response has been dismissive of our concerns and it is attempting to avoid refunding the fees.”
The parents also filed a complaint with the CBSE’s Karnataka regional office, highlighting false promises during admissions, non-compliance with CBSE guidelines, and a lack of qualified and experienced teachers.
The school, in its response to the CBSE, admitted that the previous principal had resigned as per employment terms, and the new principal took over on 1 July 2023, but claimed that the school had fulfilled the commitments it had made.
However, the parents have denied the school’s claim.
The school’s director, Mahipal Jain, responding to a message from this daily, said that his school has responded to the legal notice.
The parents, however, maintain that the school is yet to respond to the legal notice, despite the director stating otherwise.
