BHUBANESWAR: Odisha Government has asked the principals of all government and aided degree colleges in the State to ensure collection of equal fee for regular subjects. At present, a few colleges have dual mode of fee structure in regular subjects where some seats filled in self-financing mode. The colleges take normal admission fee fixed by the Government from some students and make some seats self-financing ones to collect more money as admission fee.
Higher Education Secretary Saswat Mishra in a direction issued to these colleges said there shouldn’t be any different fee structure for the seats in a regular subject. The colleges can have dual fee structure only if the subject is entirely in self-financing mode. “The practice of different fee structure should be discontinued from the current academic session,” Mishra said.
Sources said fee disparity used to affect around 5,000 students studying in these degree college every year. Convener of State School and College Teachers’ Joint Forum Golak Nayak said the provision was in force since 2014 when some seats were added to certain subjects on self-financing mode to use of the fund towards payment of salaries to the adhoc teachers.
Nayak said the disparity had led to additional burden on some of the students who had to pay more for the same subject in the same college. Self-financing courses shouldn’t be allowed in the government and government-aided colleges as it adds burden on the students, he added. “The Government instead should regularise all subjects and provide special grant towards remuneration to the faculties to avoid financial burden on students pursuing higher education in these colleges in self-financing mode,” he said.