Private English-medium schools on Thursday hinted at a fee hike to make up for the mandatory 25 per cent reservation of seats for underprivileged students.

The Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, a piece of central legislation the state government has announced it would implement, makes it mandatory for all schools to set aside a quarter of their seats for poor students who won’t be charged fees.

The state government will pay a grant to the schools for educating these students. For private schools, the grant will be equal to the fee they charge or what the government spends per child in its schools, whichever is lower.

“The amount we spend on each child is much higher than what the government spends in its schools. Since there is no scope for bargaining, we have no option but to hike fees to provide free education to the poor students,” said the principal of a reputable school in south Calcutta.

Several other school heads echoed him.

The schools feel they will lose anything between Rs 5,000 and Rs 16,000 per quota student every year.

The tuition fee of a prominent English-medium school in central Calcutta is at least Rs 1,000 a month at the nursery level and around Rs 2,000 at the plus-two level.

Although the final package is yet to be worked out, the government is unlikely to pay more than Rs 700 per student per month to private schools.

“There is an apprehension among English-medium schools that there will be a huge deficit of funds once the reservation rule comes into effect. But our hands are tied. It’s an act of Parliament and all categories of schools will have to abide by it,” said a senior official in the state education department.

“We will convene more meetings to ensure that the parents do not suffer.”

Gilian Rosemary Hart, the principal of Welland Gouldsmith School, welcomed the act but pointed out that the provisions did not specify the requirements of private institutions.

“We depend entirely on student fees to run the school. The meagre funds the government will provide will not be enough to maintain the best facilities and keep trained teachers to ensure all-round development of the students. The logistics need to be worked out well as it would be unfair to put extra burden on the parents of the other (non-quota) students,” Hart added.

Terence Ireland, the principal of St James School, said his institution would look for alternative ways to meet the additional expenses.

“Since it is not possible to bring down our expenses on infrastructure and facilities to accommodate the students from the disadvantaged section, we will have to find an alternative to cover the deficit,” he said.

The schools are also confused over the definition of “poor” in the absence of a clear guideline in the act.

“We have no clue how the government is defining or categorising the low-income group,” said Sunita Sen of Ballygunge Shiksha Sadan.