Parents upset over fees in IGCSE schools in Chennai

Chennai: In the backdrop of Supreme Court ruling allowing CBSE and ICSE schools to fix fee freely and not binding them under any committee, parents of IGCSE students are peeved at how these schools do not have any governing body in India and charge fee equivalent to that of Cambridge schools in the UK.

Added to this they also have to pay an additional fee for examination. IGCSE school authorities, on the other hand, say they are transparent about it and parents should not complain.

As there is no regulating body for IGCSE schools, they charge exorbitant
fees, said Sunitha (name changed), a parent. She paid Rs 3 lakh for the whole year for her son, who is due to appear for board exam this year.

In Mumbai, the IGCSE schools charged only Rs 1 lakh for class 10. She also said that for board examination she had to pay around Rs 35,000.

“We were not informed that for board examination we will have to pay as high as 35k and above!” she exclaimed.

She also explained that students are required to take up a minimum of five subjects for board examination.

Teachers convince students to take up more subjects for ICE award, a group award for Cambridge IGCSE students. Therefore they take up seven to nine subjects.

The exam fee varies depending on how many subjects the student chooses, she said. Another parent whose daughter is in class 6 in an IGCSE school, had to pay Rs 2 lakh per annum. The school has expat teachers from the UK and USA.

Sharmila Mohan, principal, St Francis International School, said some trainers come from the UK and USA to train teachers. “Since the teaching methodology is completely different we get these expat teachers. Our fee is slightly higher than the rest of the schools as our curriculum is different,” she said.

Sri Chaitanya International Residential School, gets expat teachers for French and other foreign languages and not for every subject, said G.D. Naidu, the school’s principal.

Parents argued that IGCSE schools could train teachers from Chennai or local areas as per IGCSE standards.