05 October 2004	Tuesday	19 Shaban 1425

PESHAWAR, Oct 4: The University of Peshawar has increased fees for post-graduate and under-graduate students from the next academic session to overcome financial losses it experienced after the recent abolition of self-finance scheme.

The university administration, however, does not term it an increase in fees, but claims that fee structure has been "readjusted" to offset losses caused by the abolition of the self-finance scheme.

A well-placed source told Dawn that the university had been under immense pressure to revise its fee structure upward as it had been faced with a loss of Rs25 million during the current year because of the abolition of the scheme.

"The loss may increase in the coming years and go up to Rs50 million if the fees are not increased," said the official. Apart from the Rs25 million loss suffered by the university because of the abolition of the scheme, the university has been facing an annual loss of about Rs120 million caused by its affiliated schools and colleges.

The official said that neither the Higher Education Commission nor the provincial government were financially assisting the university with regard to these affiliated institutions though about 79 per cent of the students came from adjoining areas of the university and only 21 per cent students were university employees' children.

These affiliated schools and colleges have become a liability on the university and the abolition of the scheme had increased the financial loss from which the university was already suffering, the official said.

The sudden end of the scheme recently announced by Chancellor of the University and NWFP Governor Iftikhar Hussain Shah has badly hit university's financial position. The university has a total budget of Rs570 million for the year 2004-2005.

The official said the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has asked the university administration to prepare a PC-1 of financial losses the university was suffering so that the HEC could compensate the loos.

The amount the HEC grants per year to the university is used for Payment of salaries and pensions of the university staff. The university bore 47 per cent and the HEC shared 53 per cent of the financial burden this year as this amount was not fixed.

The university administration had to make some readjustments in its fee structure to run affairs but it did not mean that there was a sharp increase in the fees, the university official asserted.

The admission fee of all departments of Arts has been increased and the students will now have to pay Rs4000 per annum while science departments at post-graduate levels will pay Rs6000 annually.

The fees of professional colleges have also been increased and now the students will pay Rs6000 per annum except the Law College. The annual Tuition fee and Private fund would be collected at the Treasures' office in one account in a consolidated form from the new session.

The university administration insisted that there was no increase in the fee but the university had made readjustments for example the Pharmacy department fee Rs 3000 was increased to Rs 6000 per annum whereas the students paid Rs 50,000 under the self-finance scheme.

Now every student admitted on merit will pay only Rs 6000 per annum. Similarly from the next session the fee structure was revised in undergraduate self-finance programmes including BCS, BIT, BBA, BBA (IT) where the first 25 per cent admitted on merit paying Rs 5,000 per semester will pay Rs 9000 per semester, and the 50 per @ G =? cent on merit who paid Rs 25,000 per semester will also pay Rs 9000 for both morning and evening shifts.

The 25 per cent of students of B.Sc (Economics), BBT, BES who were paying Rs 5,000 per semester and in some cases Rs 9,000 and about 50 per cent of the admissions paying Rs 15,000 every semester would pay Rs 9,000 per semester under the revised fee structure. Whereas, Pharm-D and B.Sc Geology fee structure was revised from Rs 50,000 and Rs 40,000 respectively in the evening shift to Rs 6,000 per annum.

The university plans to increase the seats in under graduate and post graduate programmes to increase resources and the minimum number of seats to be increased per shift is fifty. About one thousand seats will be increased so the number of students will increase from 19275 at present to about 20,275 students at various departments.

The administration told Dawn that it was not sure if the 500 faculty members would be enough to teach the increased number of students. "If necessary, fresh staff will be employed to teach at the university which will not only help maintain the quality of education but also create jobs for deserving people", a well placed source at the university said.

Students of University of Peshawar(UOP) expressed concern over the abolishing of self-finance scheme as it would result in burdening the students with high fees from the next session.

Talking to Dawn here at the Peshawar campus students from different departments were of the view that those students who could get admission on merit would also have to pay double of what they were paying from the next session at the university.