UGC for raising tuition fees, other charges in public varsities

The university regulator, UGC, has put forward a 30-point recommendation including hike in regular academic fees and related charges of the public university students to ensure state of art schooling for the prospective graduates.
The recommendations also include increasing budgetary allocation, reducing academic gridlock, increased financial assistantship for the students, ensuring transparent teachers' recruitment and their accountability, and complete implementation of the Private University Act 2010.  
The University Grants Commission (UGC) made recommendations through its latest annual report submitted to the president and chancellor of the universities M Abdul Hamid recently.
The university regulator in its report said the existing state allocation for the country's higher education is very insufficient to meet the minimum funding of the institutes, resulting in unexpected outcomes from the graduates.
"Presently, budgetary allocation for the country's higher education is only 0.65 per cent of the national budget that couldn't meet the minimum required funding," the regulator said.
It said the government is unable to meet the necessary funding for the public universities. In this situation the universities should increase their own sources of income.
"Increase in tuition fees and other charges of public universities' students could be a realistic approach to meet the required funding," the UGC said adding that presently education at these institutions is almost free of cost.
The university watchdog also sought the government support to implement the proposed hike in tuition and other fees of the universities. The regulator has blamed the university authorities' insufficient efforts to hike fees and other charges.
The watchdog also strongly suggested increased allocation for the poor but meritorious students to support their schooling expenditures.
"Although tuition and other academic fees are nominal, a group of students couldn't meet their living expenses," it said adding that the amount of existing scholarship is very meagre for them to support the schooling expenses.
The commission said because of insufficient support from the government, the students are forced to go for private tuition, leaving their own study neglected causing delay in the regular exams of the university.
"Private tuition of the students is one of the major causes behind the academic gridlock in many public universities including the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and Dhaka University," the regulator said.
Regarding the hike in tuition and other charges, Chairman of the Association of Universities of Bangladesh (AUB) Prof Md Ruhul Amin said the universities are working to rationalise the fees as per the regulator's suggestion.
"Presently, relatively newer universities are taking comparatively higher fees than that of the older universities like DU and BUET," Professor Amin, also vice chancellor of Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University (HSTU), said.
He, however, expressed the apprehension of students' unrests, if the authorities take such initiative for increasing internal incomes abruptly. He suggested slow and steady measures in this regard as the issue is very sensitive.
AUB chairman also suggested a subsequent increase in financial assistantships for the poor but meritorious university students to support their schooling expenditures.
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