The Hindu : Kerala News : An extra burden on NRI students

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 19, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

An extra burden on NRI students

By Vimala Vasan

A fortnightly column dealing with developments, events, issues and trends concerning expatriates in the Gulf countries from Kerala.

ABU DHABI: The move of professional colleges in Kerala to charge exorbitant tuition fee for NRI (Non-Resident Indian) students has drawn flak from Gulf NRIs. The move follows a recent State Government directive that calls for reserving 15 per cent seats for NRIs in private colleges under the management quota. The directive specifies that 50 per cent of the total seats are allocated under the management quota and 50 per cent under the merit category.

Self-financing colleges, with the freedom to fix the tuition fee for management quota at their discretion, are hiking the fee for NRI students by around 20 to 30 per cent than the normal management quota fee. The Pravasi Bandhu Welfare Trust, an NRI welfare organisation based in the UAE, has sent an appeal to the Chief Minister, A.K. Antony, and the Education Minister, Nalakath Soopy, stating that majority of the students utilising the NRI reservation are children of low and middle income Gulf NRIs and the new fee would be beyond their reach. It requested that the fee for NRI students be on a par with that of the resident students under the management quota.

K.V. Shamsudheen, chairman of the Trust, said recently that board members of some private colleges in Kerala defended the move to hike the fee for NRIs. They contend that NRIs get admission without going through the Common Entrance Examination, so they have to pay the price for this exemption.

Mr. Shamsudheen said that even if this argument, which though unjustified, was considered valid, the fee could be five per cent or so higher, and not 20 to 30 per cent. For thousands of Gulf-based NRIs, paying such huge sums to enable their wards to gain admission in colleges back home is a real tribulation, he said. The absence of many higher education options in the Gulf states for expatriates and the high cost of fee in the existing institutions, as well as in colleges in the U.S. or elsewhere abroad, meant that majority of these students have to find suitable options back home.

In the UAE alone, nearly 1,300 to 1,500 students graduate in the science stream from the 20-odd CBSE-affiliated schools every year. K.R. Radhakrishna Nair, Headmaster, Sharjah Indian School, says that nearly 45 per cent of this total or around 650 students are Keralites. There are also a large number of students from schools here that are affiliated to the Kerala State board. Apart from this, students studying in schools in Kerala who are children of NRIs employed in the Gulf are also considered NRIs and this figure is considerable.

With five other Gulf states having a large expatriate student population taking board exams annually, and the strength increasing significantly in recent years, the number of

aspiring NRI college entrants to Indian institutions runs into thousands every year.

Another factor adding to the worries of NRI parents is the ongoing stalemate in Kerala, with private colleges refusing to accept the Government ruling on a stipulated fee structure for merit students. With the colleges threatening to go to court and fears of closure, the NRI parents are in for an indefinite wait, with no sign that counselling sessions are likely to begin soon. Entrants to engineering colleges in particular are the most affected, it is learnt.

Mr. Nair says the NRI parents are still taking the risk despite these delays and deep financial constraints mainly to get their children a good education. In many cases, they have been compelled to admit their children in colleges in the neighbouring States, though they land up paying even more for these seats. Moreover, leaving their children behind in cities where there are no relatives to monitor them is added cause for worry when they return to the Gulf to resume work.

In fact, many families have been forced to live apart, particularly in the case of girl students, with the wife moving to India to be with the children, while the husband stays back in the Gulf to work and send money home to meet the family's requirements.

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