Parents of children in international schools are pleading for school-fee relief as their jobs are at risk due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Writing to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa the hard-hit parents said small and medium size enterprises are under threat as a result of the drastic measures taken to curtail the effects of the pandemic.
Extracting the current situation in world economies such as the USA, China and Germany, the parents said, “Developing countries like ours will be hit hardest, and poverty is on the rise”.
The economic impacts of Covid-19 were discussed by many experts including Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of International Monetary Fund (IMF) who explained it as “a recession at least as bad as during the global financial crisis or worse”.
“The human cost of the coronavirus pandemic is immeasurable. Therefore, the parents and the international schools need cooperation and coordination among themselves including help and fairness in overcoming this situation, since the outbreak of Covid-19 is severe on the economic structure.
Otherwise, wrong actions and policies taken may leave a severe impact on the sustainability of the schools plus the parents,” the parents stated in their letter to the President.
Most schools have continued to conduct classes for students using various modes such as the use of online calls. The parents state that they understand the measures taken by schools to keep the students occupied during the curfew.
However, some parents believe that the pressure of homeschooling the children are more on them than the teachers, especially when they have many students in different grades and at the same time manoeuvering the workloads.
“Most parents don’t have the luxury of not working. Some parents aren’t working at all and they can make time to do this, but for most of the working parents this is not an option to be happy about,” the parents said adding that, “End of the day we are parents, not teachers. We don’t have the art of introducing the knowledge of subjects to the kids’ brain”.
The parents pointed out that the elite international schooling system in Sri Lanka has been earning large profits for several years. They can now easily meet the needs of their staff and manage other expenses using the surplus amount during such sensitive times and they can definitely provide relief to parents who are finding it difficult to manage their finances due to the halt in economic activities caused by the nationwide lockdown.
The parents strongly believe that the international schools must, immediately adopt staff pay-cuts like many other reputed companies in Sri Lanka - corporate / medium and small business entities including export firms.
Having understood the ramifications of post Covid-19 they are adopting drastic steps to implement cost cutting measures which include reducing of staff costs by discontinuing temporary staff/on probation, including the reduction of salaries /allowances and OT (30% to 60%) including “capping “ of CapEx and other fixed costs expenses to withstand the downward economic impact perceived to follow, which would threaten the core existence of a going concern.
“We the parents of international schools plead for your presidential intervention for urgent relief in the waiver of school fees during this difficult lockdown situation,” they stated.