The All Nepal National Independent Students' Union (ANNISU- Revolutionary) close to the CPN-Maoist has staged a sit-in protest in front of the District Education Office (DEO), Kathmandu today, protesting the recent hike in tuition fee by private schools. According to Ratna Dhakal, General Secretary of the ANNISU-R, various private schools in the Capital City were found to have hiked their tuition fee arbitrarily, by 22 to 44 per cent, for this new academic session acquiring the permission from the DEO, Kathmandu. The ANNISU-R also has launched a padlocking drive against those schools steeply increasing tuition fee under which as much as 70 schools in the Kathmandu valley have already been padlocked, added General Secretary Dhakal. Similarly, various schools in Nawalparasi, Kailali, Kanchanpur and Dang districts were also put padlock. The agitators claimed that the hike in tuition fee was due to the pressure of some private educational institutes and lacked proper monitoring and observation of the schools. On this note, Lakshya Bahadur KC, Chairman of Private and Boarding Schools' Organization, Nepal (PABSON) opined that padlocking the schools had given a negative message. Hence, solution to this issue could be sought by discussing with the DEO, Kathmandu.