Inflation hits education now.

Inflation is rampant in the country right now. The government has chosen to de-roster some of the items from the CPI basket to show a lower inflation number. Food inflation in real terms is over 20% now. With all that, and fuels going costlier, the education sector can not remain far behind.

School managements are starting to consider and implement fee hikes by 10-25% now for the academic year 2011-2012. School managements are complaining that they are left with no choice but to increase fees because infrastructure costs, and salaries have gone up. Similarly, travel by school buses is expected to become costlier as well this year. Diesel has become costlier by about 20% over the last year.

Besides these books have already become costlier by about 5-8%, and notebook prices have already gone north by about 5%, and another increase of 5% expected after Feb 15th. Similarly, we are seeing a 5-10% increase in prices of shoes as well as school bags.

Bottom-line, "Back to School" will become dearer for parents next academic year.