Parents protest as Thane police school students made to sit in Verandah over unpaid fees

Parents of around 112 students from Thane Police School, managed by Goenka & Associates Educational Trust, staged a protest on Monday after their children were made to sit in the verandah on the first day of school due to unpaid fees. The parents claimed that the payment deadline was June 12, and a glitch in the school’s app had caused payment issues.

According to the parents, they received calls from various WhatsApp numbers, with school teachers demanding immediate payment of fees or asking them to take their children back home. The parents explained that the school’s new in-house app, which was mandatory for fee payments, had a technical glitch that made transactions impossible. 

A parent of a Class 8 student recounted how the school previously accepted payments through online or UPI transactions. “Six months ago, they introduced a new application and made it mandatory to pay fees through it,” the parent said. “This app does not show on the Play Store for most mobile phones. After accessing it through a link, it showed June 12 as the due date. I tried to pay the fees through the app, but the transaction failed two or three times.”

Parents reported that the school authorities claimed to have sent messages and emails indicating June 5 as the last day for payment, but most parents did not receive these messages. “If they have made it compulsory to pay through the app, why are the due dates different?” asked one parent. “Shouldn’t they have considered their own application glitch before humiliating our children?”

One mother of a Class 5 student shared that after receiving a WhatsApp call from the class teacher to pay the fees immediately, she offered to send a cheque the next day because the app was not working. “But they insisted on my coming to the school immediately,” she said. “The moment I reached, I saw my son sitting on the verandah, which made me very angry. We requested a meeting with the school principal, which was rudely denied by the authorities. Since the school has taken a deposit from us, they could have deducted the payment from it instead of hampering our children’s mental health.”

Parents also alleged that the school principal did not meet them despite repeated requests. Purvesh Sarnaik, Yuva Sena chief, commented, “We will send a letter to the education minister, demanding that the principal be sacked and strict action be taken against the school authorities.”