The Hindu : Scholarship: Pvt. colleges waiting for Govt. move

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 08, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

Scholarship: Pvt. colleges waiting for Govt. move

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE July 7. Despite a High Court direction asking private professional colleges to extend scholarship of up to 80 per cent of the fees for students selected for reserved seats, a clear picture on who will take the financial burden is yet to emerge.

The Karnataka Private Dental Colleges' Association, representing a majority of dental institutions in the State, has adopted a wait-and-watch policy. It wants to wait till the Government announced its share of the burden. The association President, L.K. Raju, preferred to settle the issue through a dialogue with the Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna.

The forum of unaided private new engineering colleges had on Sunday made clear its inability to extend 80 per cent scholarship. After its general body meeting, the forum agreed to provide half the scholarship amount asking the Government to pay the rest. As per the court order, the students had to pay only 20 per cent of the fee.

Welcoming Mr. Krishna's willingness to talk to private college managements, Mr. Raju felt that the discussions should cover all aspects of professional education and they should not be restricted to finding ways for implementation of the High Court order.

On the lack of transparency in the fee structure for management quota seats, Mr. Raju said the expenditure incurred by the colleges was "balanced" through the 25 per cent quota seats.

Mr. Raju alleged that the State Government had rejected a fee structure evolved by the Fee Regulatory Committee, a representative panel which included the directors of technical and medical education, vice-chancellors, CET special officer, and other officials of the Education department besides management representatives.

The committee, he said, had evolved the fee structure taking into account the interests of poor students. But by rejecting the formula, the Government has shown that the whole exercise was an eyewash. Private managements had suggested a fee of Rs. 1.9 lakh for dental and Rs. 2.90 lakh for medical colleges.

He said the Government had not set aside even one per cent of its resources for professional education. Having created universities, the State should take responsibility for their development.

When private engineering colleges took only Rs. 7,200 to educate a student for a full year under the free seat, was it right for the universities to collect Rs. 4,000 just to issue a certificate, he asked.

Mr. Raju suggested that the Government could levy a "human resource cess" from multinational and other private companies which were hiring engineering graduates from colleges.

However, he said the Government should not interfere in the admission process for the non-Karnataka quota and NRI quota seats, which he said, was the prerogative of the private managements. The Chief Minister should be more worried about the interests of the Karnataka students.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Southern States

Stories in this Section

Aug. 1 deadline for clearing files

`Environment will be protected'

Gowda sees a ploy in Sangh Parivar attack on PM

Scholarship: Pvt. colleges waiting for Govt. move

Corpn. records set ablaze in Gulbarga

Federation defers protest plan

Mediclaim premium may come down

Somashekar, AIPJD leader in Assembly

State has not got its due: Koliwad