MUSCAT: Faced with an uncertain job market amid the coronavirus outbreak many Indian school parents have raised concerns about paying fees. With classes being conducted online due to school closure, many parents have asked for fee reduction. Speaking about the concerns raised by parents, the Board of Directors (BOD) said it is exploring solutions. 

“We are closely monitoring the situation and shall be exploring new options and solutions, based on our financials and the economic environment. However, at the moment, common, centralized relief measures could severely hamper the working of various schools. Therefore, additional relief measures, if any, shall be at the level of individual schools, as per the individual capacity of each school, as determined by the respective School Management Committees. According to the changing scenario and based on the financial viability of each school, the SMCs shall determine the scope and implement new measures,” said Dr. Babysam Samuel, Chairman of Indian Schools on Monday. 

However, he said the BOD is also looking out to reaching “to various corporate and other relevant government and non- governmental organizations for monetary aid/ sponsorships,” he pointed out.

Last month the BOD said with effect from May 2020 until August 2020, the schools shall be collecting only tuition fee from students. The students shall be exempted from payment of all other non-tuition related fees during this period of four months.

“There are 21 Indian Schools in Oman operating with different fee structure and financial positions. We have schools ranging from students enrolment of 8500+ students to less than 40 students per school, with different fee structures and salary structures. Therefore, there are diverse financial challenges & complexities. The decisions taken by the Board have to be such that the sustainability of all schools is ensured while offering maximum relief to the community,” he said about the exempting the non-tuition related fees.

Online classes: Technical glitches will be fixed soon

Regarding the online classes, many parents complained about the glitches, Babysam said the BOD is expecting to smoothen the classes in the coming week. “There were many technological challenges, gaps and glitches. We expect to completely smoothen our all glitches within the next coming weeks,” he explained.

85-90% of entire operational expenses go towards meeting staff-related expenses

Asked as to why the schools are not providing additional concessions on fees, Babysam had this to add:  “We are unaided community schools, depending only on the revenues from fees for our operations. On an average across all schools, 85-90% of entire operational expenses go towards meeting staff-related expenses like salaries and HRA. As the closure of schools only means the closure of school buildings, our expenses have decreased only minimally and our major expenses remain intact without any change.