Gujarat begins process to regulate fee for non-tech courses in private institutes.
Weighed down by the wide variation in tuition fees charged by private institutes for non-technical programmes, the Gujarat government has initiated a process to regulate tuition fees for non-technical courses in private institutes as well.
The education department will regulate fee for non-technical programmes such as arts, commerce and others on the lines of Fee Regulatory Committee (FRC) for technical undergraduate and postgraduate programmes such as medical, engineering, pharmacy and others across institutes.
“Questions were raised by the state government on how much scholarship to be given for private universities or colleges where the fee is not fixed by regulatory committees… In one private university, five programmes are controlled by the FRC, while other 10 are not. When verified, the variation in fees charged by two different universities for the same course ranged between Rs 25,000 and Rs 2.5 lakh,” said a senior government official.
The official added that since eligible students do not have to pay the fee that was reimbursed under the scholarship, private universities were coaxing them to take admissions in these non-technical programmes. Hence a system was needed to bring in parity, the official said.
“Private universities have been asked to submit a comprehensive fee structure of all non-technical programmes offered by them to the state education department. However, fixing fee for private universities should not be the case as on one hand, National Education Policy (NEP) talks about flexibility and autonomy and on the other hand the state government wants all control,” said vice-chancellor of a private university in Ahmedabad on condition of anonymity.
Education Minister Jitu Vaghani said, “We will sit and discuss and decide in the best benefit of students.”
The Department of Social Justice and Empowerment offers a centrally sponsored post-matric scholarship in lieu of tuition for Scheduled Caste (SC) students. Similarly, the Tribal Development Department offers scholarships to Scheduled Tribe (ST) students.
According to education department data, universities with high fees include Ahmedabad University, which charges around Rs 2.5 lakh for most programmes, including B Com honours, and Rs 4.75 lakh for its Global executive Master of Business Management in Pharmaceutical Management.
The opposition has also been raising the issue of these scholarship schemes after it was stopped in 2020. Following repeated demands and announcement to stage a padyatra from Ahmedabad to Gandhinagar, by end of February, the BJP-led state government announced to continue with the scheme.
“We raised the issue in the budget session of state assembly in March and it was assured that the state government will continue with it… However, students have not been provided this so far,” said Congress MLA from Dasada in Surendranagar, Naushad Solanki.
According to the Central Government’s guidelines for post-matric scholarships as of March 30, 2021, fees fixed by rationalisation committees of fee fixation committees will be reimbursed during the academic years 2020-’21 to 2025-’26.
“The state government had claimed that the institutes misuse the scholarship through ghost students. If that is the case, they should take action against them but the government will not act since most of these higher education institutes are run by them only,” added Solanki.