DAMMAM: Parents of children at the International Indian School Dammam (IISD) are up in arms over a fee hike of 40 percent by the school, describing it as “outrageous”. They say the school has done nothing to improve the quality of education. The parents association, Dammam International School Parent's Association (DISPA), has begun collecting parents' signatures to submit a petition to the higher authorities, urging them to revise the decision. Several other Indian organizations are following suit. Salma, a mother of three children studying at IIS Dammam, said that she has no other option but to send her children back home to India because the fee hike is a huge burden on her husband's minimal wage. “I have three kids and now I pay around SR500 a month. With the fee increase, I'll have to pay around SR700 and the transportation charges are extra. The decision of the authorities to increase the fee is absolutely outrageous,” she said. Manoj Kumar, a father of two, said the increase must be unanimously rejected by all parents. “There are parents who are struggling to pay the current fee of SR160 per month. The authorities are also aware of it, because they have many times made students who did not pay the fees, sit in the library and not attend classes until the dues were paid,” he said. Saritha, a mother of two, said that the quality of education at the school is not good, compared to other schools and therefore the fee hike cannot be justified. “We are paying SR160 and that is around 2,000 Indian rupees. The quality of education provided back home is not received here. If you check the notebook of my daughter studying in fourth grade, you will be surprised to see the spelling mistakes and correction mistakes of the teachers. If this is the quality of education they are providing, how can they justify the fee increase?” she asked. Leena, a staff nurse who has three children studying at IISD, said that a nominal fee hike is understandable but the increase of around 40 percent is “unquestionably excessive”. The school authorities, however, are going ahead with their plan to raise the fees to ensure a standardized fee structure for all International Indian schools under the patronage of the Indian Embassy. Parents were issued a circular about the fee hike last week. The school reopens in April for the new academic year. According to the revised fee structure, fees for kindergarten will be SR200, from grade one to grade five SR225, for grade six to grade 10 the fee will be SR240 and for grade eleven and twelve SR300 a month. Previously, parents were paying SR160 for the first child, SR140 for a second, SR100 for a third child and SR60 for a fourth. A fifth child would study free until grade 10. For grade 11 and 12, the fee was SR250.
