NE EDUCATION BUREAU
AHMEDABAD, JULY 28
Aiming to garner the support of all education stakeholders – teachers, parents, and students in Ahmedabad for school fee collection, Ahmedabad based Association of Progressive Schools (AOPS), a body of self-financed schools, stormed Twitter with its #SaveOurSchools campaign on Sunday, a release said.
The digital campaign was designed to oppose the Gujarat government’s order to collect no fees from the parents till the schools open regularly. On Sunday, July 26, the campaign received tremendous support from Twitterati as the online campaign witnessed more than one lakh tweets, became No. 4 trending nationally, No. 5 in Mumbai/Bengaluru, and No. 1 in Gujarat Twitter.
“The aim of the campaign was to create a massive voice for the concern towards school education and influence the state government to take a favorable decision that is suitable to all the sections of the education fraternity,” the release added.
Speaking on this initiative, Manan Choksi, Past President and Member of AOPS, said, “We had received tremendous support from parents and other sections of the society backing the various initiatives taken by the self-financed schools for the betterment of students’ education during the pandemic. A large number of parents had shown their disagreement towards the government’s GR on not to levy fees till normal classes resume. Buoyed by their support, we had launched a digital campaign #SaveOurSchools to further echo our voice and get further support nationally. This coming together for the sake of the education fraternity in Gujarat was an important step to stop what was shortsighted and will have deep consequences for everyone.”
“In 2017, a Fee Regulatory Committee (FRC) was set up by the Gujarat government to regulate fee structure of schools in Gujarat. Despite submitting the genuine expenses approved by the auditors, the FRC drastically reduced the fees charged by private schools. Just like every other sector, private schools also faced a big hit due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its after-effects. Last week the state government had restricted all the schools not to collect fees from the parents till the schools resume normally. In such a situation, how the schools will pay the salaries of teaching staff? Such a decision is complete hogwash and our digital campaign proved that by getting support from the education fraternity,” added Choksi.
A day ahead of launching the Twitter campaign, AOPS also arranged a short training session on Twitter to understand how the campaign works and what the participants can write about the campaign.
