CBSE schools to hike fees to boost sport infrastructure

Bengaluru: In a bid to improve sports-related infrastructure in schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), managements have decided to hike the annual fee.

The CBSE had in April directed all schools under their purview to make one period of physical education mandatory across classes, starting the forthcoming academic year 2018-'19.

According to the managements in the state, this would contribute to a fee hike ranging from 2-5 per cent depending on the infrastructure that is already available at schools and the number of physical instructors in their staff roster. 

Mansoor Ali Khan, management board member of Delhi Public Group of Schools, said the schools will have to hire more instructors to accommodate all classes on a daily basis for sports activities. 

"At present we have more than 20 physical educators per school in the city. The extra expense that our schools will have this year would be for the salaries of the newly hired PT teachers and providing more yoga and related sessions everyday during the week," he said.

M. Srinivasan, President, Managements of Independent CBSE Schools Association (MICSA), said that the change in timetable would be another area in which the managements would have to work on. "With physical training periods, which are now two per week, seeing an increase to five, schools are currently working on extended timetables," he said.

Khan added that schools under his management would take a final call on the same after a trial and error run in the first month of the upcoming academic year. "Timetables for each class would be shuffled and in some cases, Saturday sessions would also see an inclusion of sports hour to compensate for extra hours during the week, especially for higher classes," he said.

Welcoming the decision, Ganga Nair, a mother of two CBSE students and an IT professional said it was high time the board realised the importance of finding the right talent from the upcoming generations outside textbooks as well.

"Such a decision has in turn increased my kids' interest to go to school as well and hopefully this would lead to more talent scouted from the youngsters in the country, at the right time. Thus, a reasonable fee hike would not be a problem for us," she said.