Rajan Lamba, president of the West Delhi Association of Public Schools, said that most complaints from parents concerned steep fee-hikes and extortion of money by schools in the guise of funds. Lamba alleged: ``There are several schools in this area that are blatantly extorting money from parents in the name of registration fee. For instance, the Happy Model School in Janakpuri has two separate wings for the junior and the senior school. But instead of automatically promoting the child to the senior class, the school has been charging an amount of Rs 5,600 from the parent for re-admission.'' He said that one of the parents had taken the school to the court and got a verdict against it. He said the school had not learnt its lesson and was repeating its mistake.

Some parents alleged that though the school was charging examination fee from the students, no answer sheets were given to them and they were made to write on the reverse side of the question paper itself. ``Not only is this cheating, but it is harassment for the child who gets thoroughly confused turning the paper back and forth while attempting the exam,'' complained a parent.

Parents of children studying in the New Era Public School alleged that mid-day meals were compulsory in the school when there was no need for them and that no lists for books were given to the children at the beginning of the year.

``The Happy Model School does not even conform to the NCERT syllabus. And the publishers of the books that they prescribe are from some faraway places like Meerut or Bahadurgarh who can't be reached easily,'' complained Lamba. Vijendra Kumar, the president of DAM, said various schools were manipulating the examination scores in such a way that students were forced to either pay extra money to clear their exams or were asked to take admission elsewhere. Parents who participated in the workshop included those who have children in Mount Carmel School, Anand Niketan (Moti Bagh); Meera Model School; Cambridge Foundation Public School; DAV (Vikaspuri); Tagore Public School (Janakpuri); Jawahar Public School and Rainbow Public School.