Parents of students belonging to St. Britto’s Academy engaged in a protest alleging that the school owned by the trust of actor Vijay’s ‘Master’ film producer Xavier Britto was charging extra.
Vijay’s latest movie Master’s producer Xavier Brito, who is also the actor’s uncle, is the Chairman of St. Britto’s Academy school located in Velachery, Chennai.
Parents alleged that the school was charging ₹67000 as fees for online classes for LKG students when the school did not even open this year.
Xavier Britto, who claims to be running the school with a service mindset through the SMR Educational Trust, is said to have charged this year’s tuition fees from parents as usual, while schools remain closed in view of the pandemic.
The school administration of Xavier Britto’s school has also allegedly collected money in the name of special fees from the parents of Class 10 and 12 students.
While affluent parents have paid the fees, those belonging to middle class who have seen lesser incomes and loss of jobs due to the pandemic have been struggling to pay and had stood before the administration explaining their plight.
But to their shock, the school administration had allegedly terminated the online classes for those students who did not pay the fees. This had enraged the parents who then stormed the school and sat in front of the school in protest over the administration’s apathy.
Realizing that the situation was worsening, the school administration informed the police. Police rushed in and took the parents inside to negotiate. Following this, the parents complained about the school collecting exorbitant fees.
A fourth grade student was charged tuition fees for 3 terms, special fees, other fees, money for notebooks, textbooks, uniforms totaling to ₹90000.
Later, two parents were called in for negotiations with the school administration. Following this, the protest by parents came to a temporary halt.
However, a spokesman of St. Britto’s Academy said that the parents had insulted the school administration by saying obscene things and that the protesters had not paid their tuition fees properly for several months despite being given a discount of up to 50% on tuition fees.
Xavier Britto whose school has been accused of harassing parents to put up with sky high fees also runs a multi-billion dollar business named Kerry Indev Logistics in Chennai and has around 85 separate luxury villas in a space of 30 acres on the East Coast Road (ECR), one of Chennai prime real estates.
Xavier Britto, the brother-in-law of SA Chandrasekhar (father of Actor Vijay). Xavier Britto is the producer of Actor Vijay’s upcoming film ‘Master’. He earlier served as a professor in Loyola College. It would do good to recall that Income Tax Officers had raided Xavier Britto’s offices for tax evasion. It is said that Xavier Britto is the benami of Actor Vijay.
His brother Father Xavier Alphonse, the former Director of Loyola Alumni Association, has been accused of harassing a woman staff of Loyola College. Read more about it here.
(With inputs from Polimer News)