HYDERABAD, Sept 15: A computer fee of Rs500 is being charged from intermediate students in government-run institutes despite it has not been decided whether information technology will be a compulsory or an optional subject.

The majority of 27 colleges of Hyderabad do not have their own computer laboratories and lecturers to teach the subject. That is why private firms are being given contracts to establish laboratories and teach IT to students through their teachers, who are only diploma holders.

Information collected by this correspondent on Monday revealed that three private firms had established computer laboratories in 16 colleges, eight each of boys and girls.

The government has yet to approve a syllabus for intermediate students and teachers are depending on topics of IT given to them by the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, to be taught to students.

Education department officials said the government could have established their own laboratories in the colleges with this amount instead of giving contracts to private firms.

According to statistics obtained from the district education department, 213 computers were available in the 27 colleges, of them 123 were provided by private firms and 90 by the education department. The colleges have 20 government-appointed computer lecturers and 41 belong to private firms.

It was learnt that the private firms were paid Rs40 per student on average. An education department officer said the private firms had not started classes so far as they were not paid their charges by the education department on the ground that the decision about the IT subject was still pending.

The district officer, education, said teachers provided by the private firms did not have MCS degrees and they had provided Pentium-I computers whereas the colleges’ own laboratories had Pentium-4 machines. Following an announcement by the Sindh education department last year that IT would be an optional subject, students did not appear in the subject although they had paid the fee.

Another education official said a summary had been moved to this effect so that every student did not have to pay computer fee but the decision was yet to be taken.

The principal of a college said parents of students had asked him not to collect the fee as it was difficult for them to pay the additional amount along with the admission fee.

He said the colleges could establish their own laboratories and appoint lecturers on contract basis out of the funds generated from the computer fee provided the government took a decision about the IT subject.