HC to govt: Take actions for charging extra fees

The High Court today ordered the government to take appropriate action against the managing committees of schools that are charging extra fees from Secondary School Certificate (SSC) candidates.

During hearing a suomoto rule, the court also asked the government to submit a report before it after complying with the order by January 6, Deputy Attorney General Tapas Kumar Biswas told The Daily Star.

The HC bench of Justice Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque and Justice Abu Taher Md Saifur Rahman fixed that date (January 6) for passing further orders on this issue, the DAG said.

Following a newspaper report, the same bench on November 11 last year issued the suomoto rule upon the authorities concerned of the government to explain as to why charging SSC candidates extra examination fees should not be declared illegal.

During a hearing on the rule, the court on January 6 this year ordered the government to make the schools in Dhaka refund extra fees charged from SSC candidates by January 20.

It also said the existing management committees of those schools would otherwise be cancelled and the members be barred from holding any position in such committees for three years.

Today, Supreme Court lawyer Mozammel Hossain placed another report published on the Daily Sun on November 17 under a headline “SSC students forced to pay extra exam fees” before the HC bench.

The report said the authorities of different high schools in Barisal are imposing excessive fees on the guardians of SSC examinees for the examination, ignoring the instruction from the Barisal Education Board.

The school authorities are collecting an additional Tk 500 to 2,000 from each SSC examinee in the name of tuition fees, coaching, management, development, magazine, sports, milad mahfil, mosques, salaries of fourth class employees and others.

The education board has fixed the form fill-up fees between Tk 1,355 to Tk 1,545 for the SSC examinees of different groups, according to the report.

After going through the report, the HC bench passed the order for taking action against the managing committees of the schools charging extra fees.