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Nursing students to go on strike at Pariyaram

Staff Reporter

Expulsion for not paying tuition fees

KANNUR: Nine B.Sc. nursing students at the nursing college attached to the Academy of Medical Science (ACME) at Pariyaram will resort to a strike in protest against their expulsion from classes for non-payment of tuition fees, which they said were discriminatory.

The students told a press conference here on Friday that they had written common medical entrance examination in 2002 and got admission in the nursing college under the merit category.

They said that they had not been given any concession entitled to merit students.

The college management had levied Rs.86,000, including Rs.50,000 as tuition fees and Rs.15,000 as special fees in the first year of their course, they said adding that nearly 50 per cent of the students who joined the course could not pay the amount.

The tuition fee for management quota seats was only Rs.30,000 per seat, they said.

K.K. Ajith, Dhanesh Kumar, Daliya Pavithran, P. Shani, K.V. Sajitha, S.R. Arana, M.P. Divya, Soumya John and P.P. Veena were the students expelled.

They said the management had asked them to pay Rs.70,500 as per a notification dated March 9, 2006.

The notification stated that the students would be expelled if the payments were not made before March 14. They were barred from attending classes from March 16.

The students said that this was clear violation of the promise of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and college chairman and Cooperation Minister M.V. Raghavan that only Government college tuition fees would be levied from merit students in ACME in the cooperative sector. Though there were 25 merit seats for the nursing course, only 11 students had got admission in the merit quota, they said. The remaining 14 seats had been filled by the management.

The management was levying Government college fees from merit students in all other courses being conducted in the institution such as MBBS, BDS, B.Pharm and 2003 and 2004 B.Sc. Nursing. This was a clear discrimination, they said adding that the management's efforts to collect huge amount from the merit students lacked all justification. Though representations had been given to the Health Minister and the Minister for Cooperation, no action had been taken to withdraw the fees, they said.

The students would resort to agitation to raise this issue, they added. B.Sc. nursing students of all batches in the college would participate in the strike, they added.

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