The Congress on Monday demanded that the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) should immediately rollback the hike in examination fees for Class X and Class XII students, and called it “an assault on India’s future generations by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government”.
“Once again an insensitive Modi government has attacked the future generation by increasing the CBSE exam fee for Class X and Class XII students,” said Congress’ chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala in a statement.
“Now, students belonging to Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) will have have to pay 250% more. Instead of ₹350, they will have to pay ₹1,200. And general [category] students will have pay double, from ₹750 to ₹1,500,” he added.
Cutting scholarships
The Congress alleged that the Centre has been consistently cutting down on scholarships that are meant to be given to SC students after passing the Class X exams.
In the latest Union Budget, the Congress claimed, the government has allocated ₹2,926 crore to disburse as scholarship for SC students, as against ₹6,000 crore given in the revised estimates of 2018-19 Union Budget.
Similary, scholarships for SC students pursuing Ph.D. courses have also been cut from ₹602 in 2014-15 to ₹283 crore in 2019-20.
“If the government doesn’t rollback the hike in fees, then it will be proven that the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) wants to counter Babasaheb Ambedkar’s call to the Dalits to educate and organise themselves,” said the Congress spokesperson.
