Mr. X is an electrician and the sole breadwinner in his family of five members including three children. Ever since the coronavirus pandemic-led lockdown came into effect, he has no regular work and has been deprived of his livelihood. Now, he has been pushed into a situation of borrowing money from his relatives and friends to support his family. His elder daughter is a student in a self-financed engineering college. During her admission, she had to pay around ₹2 lakhs as annual fees for tuition, food, transport, and so on. As the college has been closed since the second week of March and students have not utilised the facilities (transport and food), her father wants to know whether the college management will repay the amount equivalent to the expenses for two months. “Even if the college repays ₹ 20,000, the amount will be sufficient to support the family,” he says.
Another student studying in a private university paid around ₹1,60,000 as hostel fees (around ₹16,000 per month) for hostel accommodation and food. He says that his father’s income has declined due to the 40-day lockdown and feels that it will be great if the college returns ₹30,000 that is equivalent to the hostel fee for two months.
Financial strain
Similar concerns have been raised by many parents and students across the country. Most private educational institutions (schools and colleges) collect money from students in the name of fees for various purposes (tuition, transport, training, food, and so on) for the whole academic year and the institutions are morally and legally bound to repay the students the excess amount collected from them, but, I have not heard of any private school or college reimbursing the same. I wonder whether educational institutions, which are expected to teach the value of accountability to students, have ceased to be accountable.
Now, even before the current academic year has ended, most parents and their wards have started worrying about paying fees for the next academic year as many parents have lost their income sources.
Taking into account the nationwide lockdown has caused misery to the lives of millions of families in the country, many states including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Punjab, Odisha, Haryana, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh have introduced measures and instructed institutions to defer collection of fees or waiving them. It is a welcome decision by the governments. Will the measures be implemented effectively?
Recently, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) asked institutions that come under it not to demand fee payments from students until the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown is lifted and normalcy is restored. The letter sent to the institutions states that it has come to the knowledge of the AICTE that some institutions insisted that students pay fees and that all institutions have been directed to display this information on their website and communicate it to students through email. How many colleges have communicated this information to the students?
The Union HRD Minister recently announced that Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) will not have the standard hike of 10% in its tuition fee for the UG programmes and has also asked IITs and IIITs not to increase the fee for other courses too.
What should be done?
Educational institutions should be directed to reimburse the excess amount collected from students. The terms “necessary fees” and “extra fees” should be clearly defined by fee-fixing authorities, and no institution should be allowed to collect exorbitant fees.
Considering the devastating impact that COVID-19 has had on the working class, there should be no fee hike for any course in the next academic year. Schools and colleges should be directed not to collect one-time annual fees but to collect fees quarterly or semester wise.
It is important for educational institutions to be accountable and transparent as it can positively impact students. Institutions that have effective accountability mechanisms can impart values and produce good citizens.
The writer is an academic, columnist and freelance trainer. rayanal@yahoo.co.uk
