SWABI, March 3: The managements of private educational institutions in the district have increased admission fee and other dues with the start of new academic year.

According to the decision, nursery admission fee has been increased from Rs4,000 to Rs5,000 and monthly fee from Rs1,000 to Rs1,500 by majority of the schools. The monthly fee for other classes has also been increased with the same proportion. Some of the schools would charge about Rs6,000 as admission fee and Rs3,000 as monthly fee, sources said.

The principal of an educational institution, when contacted, said that they would conduct test for admitting students to each class and only qualified students would get admission. “No student will be admitted to our institution without test,” he added. He admitted that they had increased fee and other dues but he was reluctant to unveil the ratio.

On the other hand, parents have showed concern over increase in fee of educational institutions. “We don't know how we will manage to pay educational fee of our children as we are already hit hard by price hike and inflation,” they added.

They alleged that managements of those institutions were exploiting them as they knew that they could not compromise on the education of their children.

The parents said that private institutions were given a free hand to charge students according to their free will as there was no mechanism to check them. “There is dire need to set criteria of fee charging,” said Nooral Amin, a resident of Maneri Bala.

Meanwhile, the annual examinations have been started at public sector schools. The heads of schools said that it was expected that the examinations would be concluded till March 15 as a number of teachers were expected to leave for performing duty in the secondary school certificate examination, to be conducted by Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Mardan on March 16.