In a long-overdue assertion of state authority over private educational institutions, the Delhi Cabinet has approved a draft legislation intended to rein in arbitrary fee hikes in unaided private schools — a domain long cloaked in opacity and insulated from public accountability. Titled The Delhi School Education (Transparency in Fixation of Fee) Bill, 2025, the proposed law signals a shift from passive regulation to proactive governance, with an eye towards restoring equilibrium between institutional autonomy and parental rights.
At its heart, the bill constructs a regulatory architecture requiring schools to secure prior sanction from the Directorate of Education (DoE) before any increase in tuition or ancillary charges. No longer will fee escalations be unilateral announcements; instead, they must pass through a School-Level Fee Regulation Committee — a body envisaged as a microcosm of educational democracy. This panel, comprising the school principal, a director, a nominee of the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), and a retired education officer, is tasked with evaluating the legitimacy of proposed hikes based on a spectrum of considerations: geographic location, infrastructure, faculty salaries, and institutional surplus.
To avoid bureaucratic drift, the legislation imposes a set of decisive timelines. Schools must submit fee hike proposals by April 5. The committee’s recommendations are to be finalized by July 15. In cases of parental objection, the matter can be escalated to a district grievance committee by September 30. These timelines, if adhered to, may finally place the annual school fee ritual on a transparent and time-bound footing.
Violations will not go unpunished. The draft bill prescribes penalties between ₹1 lakh and ₹10 lakh for institutions flouting the approval process or deploying coercive tactics — including the striking off of names or denial of promotion and transfer certificates over fee disputes. Such punitive provisions are not ornamental; they are an acknowledgment of years of anguish expressed by Delhi’s parent community, often reduced to voiceless negotiators in the face of non-negotiable demands.
Education Minister Ashish Sood, articulating the government’s rationale, underscored the bill’s intent to “safeguard the rights of students and parents” while ensuring that schools maintain financial prudence without resorting to exploitative practices. “This is not an attack on private education,” Sood clarified. “It is a reaffirmation that education, even when private, must operate within a framework of fairness and accountability.”
This legislative push comes in the wake of years of mounting protests, legal petitions, and bitter confrontations between parents’ associations and school administrations. Placards bearing messages like “Our appeal to school & Director of Education not to raise fee” have become emblematic of a parent body fatigued by opaque accounting and unchecked power.
The proposed legislation, long stalled by political inertia and judicial ambiguity since its initial conception in 2015, is expected to be tabled in the forthcoming session of the Delhi Assembly. Its fate will serve as a referendum not merely on the regulation of private school fees but on the broader question of where the balance of power in education truly lies — with institutions or with the families they serve.
Shorn of polemic and rooted in realism, the bill may finally offer Delhi’s parents the one thing they've most yearned for: a fair hearing in the classroom economy.
