Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada   

Fee issue: State urged to plug loopholes

VIJAYAWADA: Even as thousands of students pursuing professional courses like B.Tech, MBA, MCA, B.Ed etc have been facing untold hardship due to delay in release of scholarships and tuition fees, the State government is contemplating changes in the scheme to plug loopholes and make it less burdensome.

An interaction with student leaders and teachers in coastal districts showed that the reimbursement helped private colleges more than the students and led to crass commercialisation of education. They demanded the government to take a fresh look at the issue considering the experience of last few years and implement the scheme properly to help the poor students in a better manner.

Following privatisation, many private colleges came up offering professional courses sustaining themselves on tuition fee paid by the students.

Number up

Their number increased steeply after the government reimbursed tuition fee for SC/ST students and later extended the benefit to Backward Classes from 2007-08 and economically backward class (EBC) students from 2009-10.

“Several professional colleges would have been closed by now for want of students had there been no reimbursement of tuition fee,” said A.V. Pulla Rao, retired Principal of Mangamma College.

While the EAMCET Convener fills 70 per cent of seats on merit basis through common entrance tests, the management can fill the remaining seats on their own. The government has fixed tuition fee, special fee for every course under both the categories. The government agreed to reimburse tuition fee and special fee for students admitted under convener quota if their parental income is less than Rs. 1 lakh per year. But it backed out from its obligation to pay special fee later.

Private colleges are collecting special fee more than prescribed and fleecing students admitted even under convener quota, said Balakotaiah, Prakasam district secretary of SFI.

Complaints galore

Complaints are galore on income certificates issued by the tahsildars. “A girl comes to the college in a car but claims tuition fee reimbursement from government,” said the principal of an engineering college. Many EBC students, whose fathers are government employees, claimed reimbursement quoting their mother or a relative as guardian, whose income cannot be ascertained.

About 10-15 per cent of students dropped out but the managements claimed reimbursement of tuition fee for all students.

Mr. Pulla Rao felt that tuition fee should be reimbursed only for those who clear at least 50 per cent of subjects in the previous year to prevent misuse of the scheme.

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