Calcutta, Dec. 24: Over 15,000 state-aided schools are in a bind on whether to collect the one-time annual fee because the right to education act, which will be effective in Bengal from January, bars any charges for children between six and 14 years.

The state is yet to issue any directive forbidding the collection of the fee of Rs 240, compounding the confusion among the school heads.

“Since the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, bars the schools from charging any kind of fee from the students, we are still not sure whether we can collect the amount of Rs 240 from them,” said Sukdeb Halder, the headmaster of a school in South 24-Parganas’ Raidighi.

In chapter II of the act, it is mentioned that “every child between the age of six and 14 years shall have the right to free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood school till completion of elementary education…. No child shall be liable to pay any kind of fee or charges or expenses which may prevent him or her from pursuing and completing the elementary education”.

Since 1979, students of state-aided primary, secondary and higher-secondary schools in Bengal are not required to pay any monthly tuition fee. The schools, however, are allowed to charge a one-time annual fee to meet day-to-day expenses. The government reviews the fee periodically.

“This fee helps us pay for electric bills, maintain computers, buy chalks, dusters and other stationery items, organise annual sports and cultural programmes and observe festivals such as Saraswati puja,” Halder said.

As the Mamata Banerjee government has accepted the provisions of the RTE act, the schools do not know whether to collect the money from students. The authorities are also clueless about how to meet the day-to-day expenses as the government only pays for the salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff.

“At times, the government gives grants for some development expenditures but there is no provision to provide funds to meet day-to-day expenses,” a school education department official said.

He said that as the government had not withdrawn the earlier order — a circular issued during the Left regime that pegged the annual fee at Rs 240 — the schools wouldn’t be “legally” wrong if they ask the students to pay the amount.

But the heads of some schools said they had been advised by lawyers against collecting the fees as it would be a violation of the provisions of the RTE act.

The students are required to pay the fee at the beginning of each session.

“The annual exam results have been declared and the new session will start in a week. Our reserve funds are so nominal that we won’t even be able to observe Saraswati puja. We will be inconvenienced to a great extent if we do not get to know if the government will give us the funds or we will continue collecting the fees,” a headmaster of a Madhyamik school in Calcutta said.