EDUCATION IS NOT FOR SALE !
OPPOSE FEE HIKE !!
OPPOSE FEE HIKE !!
RESIST THE COMMODIFICATION OF EDUCATION !!!
University is in process to make
changes in the fee-structure, raising fee of all departments and hostels.
Recently meeting held under your Chairpersonship has decided to implement a
fee-hike of 10-20% in various courses and 10% in hostel fee.
WE APPEAL ALL THE STUDENTS TO OPPSOSE THE DECISION OF UNIVERSITY TO HIKE FEE AS STEP TOWARDS FURTHER COMMERCIALISATION AND PRIVATISATION OF EDUCATION.
SFS submitted a memorandum to VC regarding the same.
MEMORANDUM
To
The Vice-Chancellor
Panjab University,
Chandigarh.
Subject: REGARDING THE HIKE IN TUTION FEE OF VARIOUS
COURSES AND HOSTELS FROM NEXT SESSION
Sir,
University is in process to make
changes in the fee-structure, raising fee of all departments and hostels.
Recently meeting held under your Chairpersonship has decided to implement a
fee-hike of 10-20% in various courses. Giving various reasons you are trying to
justify the same.
The decision of the University
seems quite arbitrary. As already the fee is so sky-high that students have to
put very hard to make out their fee, the decision will further limit the no. of
students coming from weaker economic and social backgrounds.
Sir, the institutions such as ours
are the centers for public welfare and education is one of the primary needs of
a person for which the ‘Welfare State’ is to be liable. The decisions of the
university has been such from past few decades that the purpose “to stand
for humanism and provide education to the masses of the country” has been
pushed aside. On the contrary, Education is being presented as a Commodity
which is to be sold in the market which is further controlled by profit-loss
phenomenon. It is being made a privilege, which only a few can relish.
Being in an era wherein the
competition controlled market is intervening in and depriving the masses of
basic needs, it should be a duty of the institutions such as ours to fight and
prevent education from being privatized and commoditized so that the purpose of
the education is not defeated. But on the contrary, the University is
implementing such policies which do quite the opposite. From more than a
decade, only self-financed courses have been introduced in our university which
are run totally on the money extracted from students. Further students have also to
submit many unnecessary fees (other than tuition-fee) like development fee, amalgamated
fund, dilapidation fee, gardening fee, maintenance fee and many more, which
seem nothing more than mere tactics to extract money from students’ pocket.
We oppose the decision of the committee to implement the
fee-hike various courses and hostels. Students here are already paying much excess fee as
compared to other public universities (See Annexure). We demand that the
university to repeal the decision to hike in fees of and on the contrary lower
the tuition as well as hostel fee and other charges so that the increasing
burden of cost of education on students could be reduced and more students from
weak economic and social background could afford to study in the University. Failing
which students would be left with no option but to protest.
Yours
sincerely,
Students of
Panjab University, Chandigarh