The meeting in progress between the school heads and the student union. Picture by Suman Tamang

Darjeeling, May 12: The Gorkha Janmukti Vidyarthi Morcha has decided not to allow students of Loreto Convent — a prominent school in the hills — to attend classes for two days starting tomorrow as the institution authorities did not attend a meeting held to discuss the recent hike in tuition fees.

St Helen’s Secondary School in Kurseong, too, faces a similar threat.

The student wing of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha — the party whose writ runs high in the hills — today called a meeting of the representatives of six hill institutions that had hiked their fees in the past couple of months.

While representatives of St Augustine’s School and St Joseph’s Convent from Kalimpong attended along with Vidya Vikas Academy and Bethany School from Darjeeling, Loreto and St Helen’s stayed away.

Keshav Raj Pokhrel, the general secretary of the Vidyarthi Morcha, said: “We have decided to close the two institutions for 48 hours starting tomorrow for their insensitivity.” He added that while Loreto had increased the monthly fees by Rs 450, the Kurseong-based St Helen’s had hiked its by Rs 700.

“We had written to these two institutions requesting them to attend the meeting… But they remained indifferent to our pleas and insensitive to the problems of the common people,” said Pokhrel.

The Darjeeling-based Loreto Convent was established in 1846 and is currently run by the Loreto Educational Society. The Loreto Sisters, which follows the order of the Institute of Blessed Virgin Mary, runs 11 educational institutes, including Loreto College Calcutta. During the pre-Independence era, the Indian Branch of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary was located in Darjeeling where Mother Teresa was a novice nun between 1921 and 1931.

The Loreto authorities could not be contacted. An employee of the school said Sister Teresa McGlinchey, the principal, was out of station.

Sister Dominica, the principal of St Helen’s, said: “I could not attend the meeting because of an important session in school today. As far as the fee hike is concerned, we have to pay our teachers well.” She refused to say anything on the Morcha call to shut down the school.

St Helen’s was established in 1890 and is run by the Congregation of the Daughters of the Cross. Many royal family members from Bhutan have studied in the institution.

The Morcha student front had proposed to the schools to slash the hiked fees by 75 per cent. “The school representatives said they would let their decision be known within three days after discussing it with the managing committee.”

The outfit has threatened to call an indefinite strike in educational institutes from May 18 if the schools do not rollback their fees. The student wing, however, has decided to defer the one-day educational strike scheduled to take place tomorrow.