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Vouchers to offset school fee hike load

Times of India, 20 February 2009

NEW DELHI: Parents facing the heat after a steep hike in school fee can expect some relief in future. The government is planning to introduce education vouchers for students that will enable them to go to any school with good infrastructure in city while the government foots the bill.

State minister for education, Arvinder Singh Lovely, said, "We will introduce the scheme of education vouchers for students in all the private schools very soon. We had to recently hike the fees due for implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission. This scheme will benefit the parents facing the heat due to the hike."

Lovely announced this while releasing the first assessment report of the Delhi Voucher Project launched in 2007 by the Centre for Civil Society. As per the scheme, students will get money from the government in form of education vouchers with which they can take admission in a school of their choice. The schools will be able to cash the vouchers from the government's account. Lovely said parents who required the vouchers may have to give the government their income details.

The Centre for Civil Society had launched this project in 2007 and 408 students from 68 wards in the city were given education vouchers of Rs 300 per month. "We had started with 408 students because not much money was available to us at that time. We had received 1.2 lakh applications and the students were selected on the basis of a draw of lots," said Dr Parth J Shah, president, CCS.

Read the story in Times of India