The High Court has ordered the government to make schools across the country that charged additional fees from SSC candidates to refund them by January 20.
The bench of Justice Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque and Justice Abu Taher Md Saifur Rahman gave the order on its own volition yesterday on the basis of a report in a Bangla daily that some schools charged as much as eight times the fee fixed by the authorities concerned for registering an SSC candidate.
According to government regulations, the enrolment fee for an SSC candidate is Tk1,400. To refund the excess money, the court directed the education secretary and chairpersons of all the 10 eduction boards to issue an order upon the schools in question.
“Otherwise, the management committees of the schools concerned will be considered invalid and the members of those committees be considered ineligible for any management or governing body election,” the court said.
After yesterday’s hearing, the court also exempted the respondents from appearing before the court and fixed February 1 to issue further order regarding the matter.
On November 10 last year, the bench asked the government to immediately stop charging of the extra fees. It also issued a rule asking the government to explain why such practice should not be declared illegal. Yesterday, the principals, headteachers and heads of the management committees or governing bodies of 20 Dhaka schools appeared before the bench.
The court observed that not more than Tk1,200 could be charged for special coaching at schools ahead of the SSC examination.
The court said: “Only 20 schools have updated us of their situation in this matter, but we issued the order for all the schools of the country. Only Dhaka and Barisal education boards responded to the order.”
The deputy attorney general said: “There are some schools in Dhaka which took as much as Tk18,000 from each SSC candidate. It was not published in newspapers. The guardians informed us about it.”