ISLAMABAD, July 5: Financial crunch in education sector is now compelling universities to hike their fees.
Pakistan’s largest educational institution ‘Punjab University’ has increased its examination fee by up to 20 per cent due to which as many as 550,000 private students of graduation and post-graduation levels will bear the brunt every year, it has been learnt reliably.
Punjab University (PU) has increased the examination fee of graduation level from Rs2, 450 to Rs 2, 950, sources told Dawn. Besides, students of MA, MSc, M.Ed, M.Com and other courses will now have to pay Rs3, 200 to appear in the examination each year, which is 10 per cent more as compared to the fee they used to pay previously, they added.
An official of the university requesting anonymity told Dawn that initially there was a proposal that PU should increase the examination fee by 45 per cent because just two years ago it was spending Rs294 million on exams but now the overall expense has reached to Rs398 million because university management has increased the paper-marking rates.
“Besides charges of invigilators and examination superintendents have also been increased. On the other hand, Higher Education Commission (HEC) does not have any amount to help the university out of the crisis, so the management has decided to increase its income by raising exam fee,” he said.
Another official close to the PU administration – but surprisingly still ‘unwilling’ to be named – claimed that fee had not been raised for as many as 32,000 regular students of the university studying at the campus. “However,” he confirmed, “nearly 550,000 students who have been studying in educational institutions affiliated with the university or intending to appear in the exam as private students will have to pay the additional fee.
“We have been collecting Rs100 million in the head of exam fee from regular students besides earning another Rs71 million from other sources like hostel fee etc. But the income is not enough to meet our needs as we also give scholarships of worth Rs100 million to students every year,” he explained.
“Still our fee is much less as compared to the University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Lahore, Government College University (GCU) Lahore and Lahore College for Women University. Moreover, it has been decided that students hailing from Balochistan can study in the university without paying a single penny,” he claimed.
He further tried to justify the move saying, “During the last two years basic pay of the university’s employees has been increased by 65 per cent but the income could not be raised in proportion to it.
“On the other hand the HEC has also conveyed us a message that they are not in a position to help out the universities because it is not getting funds from the federal government for the purpose”
He added that in the recent budget university had also increased the research grant from Rs75 million to Rs85 million because our 65 per cent population is of youth and we have to invest on them.”
Vice President, PU Academic Staff Association, Prof Zahid Majeed said that he was unable to understand that if PU had increased the exam fee then how Balochistan University would be able to run its academic activities because it was 95 per cent reliant on the HEC funds.
“If universities increase strength of classes, it will become difficult for the teachers to teach them and ultimately standard of education will suffer. Education is a long-term investment and all over the world governments invest in the sector happily but here in Pakistan the government has been advising universities to increase their fees but avoid asking for more funds,” he said.
Commenting on the issue, Vice Chancellor Punjab University, Dr Mujahid Kamran said: “For the graduation level, fee has been increased by 20 per cent but for post-graduation level, it has been increased by 10 per cent only”. He justified the hike in exam fee saying the university had been spending an additional Rs100 million on exams because price of everything spiraled.
He added that in 2010-11 the HEC announced Rs1.6 billion package for PU and all the money was paid to them but in 2011-12 due to cut on the budget, the commission had promised to pay Rs1.21 billion out of which Rs330 million were still to be paid as the HEC could not get the funds from federal government.
“We need money to pay the salaries but unfortunately we do not have funds. So we have no choice but to increase the exam fee for private students,” he explained.
He claimed the increase was nominal and the students would not be much affected by it as most of them did not take admission in any college and only took the exams,” he said.