The parents of a number of students at the International Indian School, Riyadh (IISR) are seething at a fee increase announced for the 2008-2009 academic year. The parents said on Saturday that the school's managing committee (MC) was doing them no favors by taking such a decision amid the growing cost of living in Saudi Arabia. They urged visiting Indian Minister of External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee to intervene and influence the newly nominated MC to ditch the decision, which they said will have a very ill effect on parents, particularly those with three school-going children. Mukherjee arrived at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday afternoon with a high-level delegation and headed straight to Al-Yamama Palace for an audience with Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz. The parents said IISR's MC has not circulated any memo to announce the move, but the school's annual calendar handed over to the students had already detailed the fee increase to be implemented from this academic year. According to the school calendar, the concession tuition fee for a third child was increased from SR285 to SR450, an increase of SR150 per term, while the term fee of SR570 for the first child and SR540 for the second remained unchanged. Other increases in the fee structure, which included the introduction of some additional fees, will disturb the parents' monthly budgets, placing at least SR325 in extra burden per term per child, particularly those who have three children going to the school. Besides an increase of about SR20 per child on the transportation fee, there has been an increase in CBSE Board Examination fees from SR300 to SR325. Gulf Board Examination fees were raised from SR30 from SR50. A new “computer lab” fee of SR60 per child studying in grades between third through eighth has been added for this academic year. Each parent has to pay an SR500 fee as a cautionary deposit starting from next academic year in March 2009. Parents are now required to pay SR300 in development fees per child, instead of per parent earlier. Parents said IISR and its counterparts in Jeddah and Dammam, which have a similar number enrolled in all three schools, maintain a varied fee structure, with the IISR being the most expensive. They said that since IISR is now supervised by an MC which the Indian Embassy had nominated, the Minister can play a role by instructing Ambassador M.O.H. Farooq to directly intervene and cancel fee increases. Talib Al-Rahman, Chairman of the school's MC, only admitted there was a fee increase, but told the Saudi Gazette he had to rush to a foundation stone laying ceremony for the Delhi Public School by Minister Mukherjee, hence having no time to speak to the Gazette. Principal Manzar J. Siddiqui was unavailable for comment on Saturday. The salaries of most of the parents whose children attend IISR range from SR2,500 to SR4,000. __
