Parents of students at the private CIA First International School have requested a 50 per cent lower tuition fee because they are faced with the impacts of the Covid-19 virus and the children aren’t in school.

The parents on Wednesday gathered to protest in front of the school to demand that the private institution accept the 50 per cent request for students in grades 1-12.

The protest came after the school issued a notice on Tuesday saying that to respond to their request, it had decided to lower the fee by 25 per cent for the pre-school and by 15 per cent for those in grades 1-12.

Sok Sotheary, a student’s mother told The Post on Wednesday that the school had originally decided to lower the fee by 50 per cent for some 200 students.

But because parents had still protested, the school had decided to lower the fee by 25 per cent for the pre-school and by 15 per cent for those in grades 1-12.

“But guardians could not accept the lowering of the fee, so they protested. The reason the guardians cannot accept it is because online learning doesn’t yield better results.”

In a letter, the parents emphasised that they made the request to the school because their families’ faced hardships due to the impacts of Covid-19. They had also spent extra on materials and internet services for their children to study at home and pre-school students cannot study online.

The school could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport spokesman Ros Soveacha said briefly that the ministry had encouraged the private school and parents to solve the problem bilaterally. He maintained that for now, all relevant parties had been affected by Covid-19.

Affiliated Network for Social Accountability executive director San Chey said when schools were ordered to close, students were required to study at home.

Therefore, he said the schools are saving on expenses like administration and electricity. He said that burden has now been put on parents so the school should consider lowering their fees.

“Overall, we want [the school] to consider lowering the fee systematically, by at least 50 per cent. The school and the parents have to help one another during this situation. The building’s owner should also lower the school’s rent,” he said.

Parents warned that they would gather to protest again in front of the school this weekend. They also warned that if the school doesn’t accept the request, they will stop their children from studying there.