KARACHI, Oct 18: The decision of the Board of Governors of the government-run Institute of Business Administration to increase the fees of students enrolled under the self-finance programme for the second time in a year has upset the students, particularly those belonging to the middle-income group.

Students said that they had been informed by the IBA director that the BoG had resolved to increase the fee of students enrolled under the self-finance BBA/MBA programmes from the next semester.

In January last, they resorted to enhance the then existing semester fee by 10 per cent, and now once again they have decided to charge another Rs10,000 from the self-finance scheme students, thus a total increase of 30 per cent is being effected in less than a year, they added.

The self-finance scheme was introduced for the first time at IBA in the 90s for students seeking admission to the MBA Executive programme. Presently, the institute is running the BBA- MIS Executive programme and BCS course at its city campus under the self-finance scheme which involves about 360 students, said a IBA faculty member.

One of the affected students said that the increase of Rs15,000 in fees, being made in two consecutive semesters, meant a break in academic career for many of his classmates. The fresh increase would affect our parents very much, who have to bear the study expenditures of more than just one child, added the student. It seems members of the IBA’s BoG have delusions with regard to the financial capability of the average IBA student’s family, he added.

It was further felt that the arbitrarily-imposed fee the students were paying under the self-finance scheme failed to stand up to any cost-benefit analysis conducted on the facilities provided to the students. The decision to increase the fees in the case of the MIS programme, on the pretext that the government had reduced its grant, was also not justified as the grant was never meant for these programmes, claimed another student.

Students said that since the institute had sold the seats under the self-finance basis after well thought-out calculations, it was not appropriate to charge the students arbitrarily at the middle of the course. If they have decided to introduce a new fee package under the self-finance scheme, then it should be implemented in the case of newcomers only, pointed out yet another concerned student.

Students stated that the ever-increasing tuition fee, termination of scholarship programmes and non-initiation of any loan scheme were most certainly to increase hardships for students. They said that they were against the increase because the sum was too high to pay for the quality of education they received, and urged the competent authorities as well as the Sindh Governor, Mohammedmian Soomro, to intervene and order at least the withdrawal of the second increase of Rs10,000.

On being approached, a staffer said that the IBA director, Dr Javed Ashraf Hussain, is presently out of the country to visit family members and also to do carry out faculty development works for the institute.

Also, when contacted, the acting director, Prof Inayat N. Din, said that he did not know about the working behind the increase, but understood that such decisions were taken during the budgetary meeting of the BoG.

After some consultation with the staff concerned, however, he mentioned that Dr Ashraf was also not happy with the situation and he would take the matter to the BoG again, urging to revoke the decision or minimize the rate of increase in fees.

To another question he said that the scheme was introduced to improve the quality of education and meet the expenditures required for improving the teaching faculty of the institute. The amount received from regular students fees at the main campus and fund from the UGC were not even enough to meet expenses incurred on the BBA regular programme, he added.

He informed that a couple of courses at the IBA were being conducted on subsidized rates with financial support from some banking institutions, but those had now stopped as the donors had stopped assistance. The scholarship programme that was in vogue in the past has also been stopped under the directives of the BoG, which had asked to formulate new rules for the scholarship or fee-waiving schemes of the IBA, he added to another query.

He said that a programme for giving loans to students was also announced in the past but that, too, could not materialize as the commercial banks denied extending support in view of the Supreme Court decision regarding interest-free banking.

However, he said that the IBA itself was making arrangements for giving profit-free loans to its students, which would be recoverable from students after completion of their MBA education and joining an institution, he informed and mentioned that rules for the purpose were also being finalized and would be presented before the BoG for approval.