Parents in Bengaluru are facing mounting concerns ahead of the 2026–27 academic year, with private schools reportedly increasing fees (not to mention confusion over school admission age rules) among other problems.
After last year's exams are over, a number of private schools in the city have started their admissions process. But they have been getting concerned about fees: parents have reported that prices for a lot of them have been up 5–15 percent.
Parents say that although they see relatively low fees in schools even then, schools will only hike fees by 5–10 percent as there was a need to increase some for a while but have not brought them down to the same level as others and even higher costs that are raising their living costs of their kids now. Many people seem to complain that with no regulatory oversight they see year after year fee hikes.
The remaining issue for some of these concerned parents is still to have a general misconception on school admissions age standards. A 60-day relaxation of age limit for school admissions will only go the length of the year’s admission. But most parents are still asking whether that standard of 5.5 years would hold true as it had been followed in past years.
So parents argue that the present rule might force children to repeat UKG (Upper Kindergarten) if they do not meet the revised age requirement. It would mean an additional year of schooling and a financial strain for the family may cost lakhs of rupees in repeated fees.
So combining these two problems fee hikes and age eligibility confusion has been a stressful headache for many households. Parents, coordination committees and others across the board have weighed in, asking the government to do better to control private school fees.
Many groups have also advocated for fee regulation in a structured model comparable to what is being considered in other states like Tamil Nadu for transparency and equity. Without strict checks, private schools still would keep raising fees more and more each year.
Parents are now calling on the Karnataka government to address both concerns promptly and fix the age eligibility policy and establish mechanisms to control fee hikes before the new academic year starts.
