Memorandum against Fee-Hike submitted to Principal

IISJ Parents' Voice Team met IISJ Principal Mr. Syed Masood Ahmed on 25th April 2011 at his office and submitted the memorandum below along with parents' comments received  for our earlier post  "Parents appeal to the Principal".  .
  
The Principal allowed us to talk freely our concerns about fee hike and other issues of IISJ & assured us he will forward our suggestion to higher board for their review and consideration.


Below is the memorandum submitted to the Principal:

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April 23, 2011

To     :       International Indian School Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Attn. :       Mr. Syed Masood Ahmed        Cc : Consulate General, Jeddah

The Principal                              : Higher Board IISJ

                                                               

Sub :       IISJ Parents joint appeal to reconsider the fee hike.

Respected sir,

This has reference to your Circular # IIS/JED/PRL/2010-11 dated 22-March-2011 regarding academic and infrastructural development of Indian School and the unilateral decision to go for a considerable fee hike, which we, parents (organized under the www.iisjparents.blogspot.com) of International Indian School express our serious concern & anguish jointly and request you to reconsider the fee hike in view of our suggestions outlined below as follows:

Our concerns:

The first and foremost – the concerns of parents were not been taken care while implementing such a fee hike. 

a.    Absence of PTA:  We believe that as expatriate Indian parents in Jeddah, we are the part of the school, but never got a chance to know what are the gains and issues of the school. It is quite unfortunate that we, parents don’t have any voice in this community institution, and we feel that parents are treated merely as the fees payers.

b.    The school financial status is not published and been kept many years not transparent.  Since it is a public/ Community institution – there should be an elected body of the parents and the officials of the school.  This will enable the parents to get updated on the financial /educational / administrational status of school at any time.

c.    Our school is having surplus/ reserve amount in the past where the teachers were not paid reasonably. Now squeezing the parents by projecting this issue is not justifiable.  As a community School, it should be a no profit / no loss institution, whereas the school has accumulated a huge reserve of millions over the years.  The said amount has never been used for the improvement of school on a time bound schedule. Our IISJ has to be transformed a lot, to keep abreast with the standards of other CBSE schools in the region and in India. 

d.   School Transportation: The existing transportation facility does not meet the requirements comparing to the strength of our students. Our school buses are fully packed with more students than its capacity. But instead of improving the facility adding more buses in to the fleet, school authorities are on a privatization programme and the private (contract) transporter is using the same school for his service,  which raises enough doubts on the credibility of the decision.

e.   Lack of a body to evaluate the efficiency of the teachers has been noticed that there are a lot of teachers whom have to be retired long back/there are teachers not up to the standards still continuing. There should be a proper body to evaluate the efficiency of teachers/motivate and refresh them time to time. If it is due to non-availability of qualified and efficient teachers, the parents should be informed of it and the committee including parents should find ways to solve the issue. 
Refresher courses, run by highly qualified experts, at least once a year should be given to the teachers.

f.    Pvt. Tuition by Indian School Teachers:  A serious issue the parents are facing is the unscrupulous private tuitions conducted by the teachers of IISJ. The students in higher classes are compelled to go for private tuition, which has been brought to the attention of school authorities several times in the past, but no action has been taken yet.  Once the salaries of the teachers are increased the private tuition should be stopped.  The management committee of parents and teachers should monitor this.

g.   We understand that it is the wrong assessment that all parents are drawing a good salary and are able to bear this fee hike:  The parents should be given a platform to communicate their issues on a timely basis and a common PTA should convene every quarter of the year at least.

Other concerns of parents were attached herewith which we received through online via www.iisjparents.blogspot.com

Our suggestion(s):

1.   Before implementing any rise in the fees, a parent teachers meeting should be convened and the complaints of parents should be taken care of.

2.   Prepare a 5 years Master Plan for the infrastructural development of the school (including the increment of salary of sfaff) & implement it phase to phase in an appropriate manner.

3.   The said plan should be discussed and agreed at least for the first two years by the body – accordingly  take a decision to increase the fee.

4.   Instead of privatizing the transportation facilty, the school should be benefitted and more buses should be added to the fleet.

5.   The surplus fund, if any, should be invested to a scheme and the profit should be provided to the welfare of school teachers and staff.

6.   Implement double shift instead of buying expensive land inside city area and construct new buildings, that can avoid to squeeze  SR 70 millions from the poor parents

In view of the above concerns and suggestion, we kindly request you to freeze the current order of fees hike and implement the same in an amicable manner with the full support of the parents.  Let us work together for the success of our IISJ and our kids.

Best regards,

Signatories:

Sd/-

Siraj Kollam, Noushad Adoor, Nasar Chavakkad & Ashraf Unneen