Madrassa students protest against fee hike

MALDA, June 25: Hundreds of madrassa students blocked national highway 34 at Sujapur in Kaliachak police station and confined the headmaster of Subhania High Madrassa to protest against the violation of government order regarding admission fees. The Madrassa authorities asked students to deposit Rs 220 for session fees. But after the students’ movement, authorities have been forced to follow the government direction. The headmaster of the Subhania High Madrassa Mr. A. Hossain said: “Students protested against the decision of taking a session fee of Rs. 220 from each student. Finally we have decided to charge Rs. 75 according to students’ proposal. It may be noted that the government has the fixed admission fee at Rs. 63 for each student in rural belt and Rs 75 for the students in urban areas. On receiving complaints from various corners, the school education minister Mr. Partha De recently issued an order to take action against the school authorities who had collected high admission fees from the unwilling students. The district inspector of schools, Mr. Chinmay Sarkar has already circulated the recent government order to all schools and pointed out: “If we get any complaint regarding excessive admission fees after June, the grant in aid will not be allowed for those schools”. The recent order also pointed out that the school authorities would have to return the excess amount received as admission fee from the unwilling students and guardians. It may be noted that CPI (M) backed teachers’ organisation ABTA, criticized the recent order of the education department and demanded enhancement of admission fee because the school education department had revised the admission fee in 1993. n SNS