College FEES must be Reduced
Hello guys this is your boy Ali Solanki and today we’ll be talking about the college and school fees. I will be talking for the students, parents, teachers as well as the college and will be talking about the solutions for it in the later part of the video so do watch this video till the end to get its full meaning. I won’t be pointing out a specific college or a school rather will be talking about this topic in a more general sense.
The Corona virus has been with us for more than 4 months now. It has caused worldwide shutdowns and all of us are suffering due to this. People are getting fired from their jobs. In such tough times we’ve seen a lot of people coming together to fight this unitedly. Some people are helping others financially whereas some are giving emotional support. Whatever the case might be I am glad that everyone has realized that we’re in this together.
A major part of an Indian family’s income is spent for the education of their child. Plus if you’re an engineering student or in the management field you already know how expensive colleges are. So of course the colleges would be reducing their fees to a large extent, right? Not exactly. Let alone reducing their fees they are not even paying teachers their full salary.
I’ll first talk from the student’s point of view as I am a student myself.
STUDENTS:
We as students did not sign up for an online course. The only benefit that we would get from a college was not about learning new things rather it was the connections that we built with like-minded people having the same interests as ours. The kind of teachings that our college provides is already pretty outdated and if we wanted we could’ve just opted for an online course which is updated with every new feature that is being released in the markets. But we wouldn’t get to access the labs, make new friends, participate in sports or even get the amount of attention from our teachers that a classroom provides.
However because of the corona virus all the benefits of opting for a 10–12lakh course in a private college over a few hundred bucks if not free online course has reduced to none. A college can never compete with the amount of teachings that these courses provide. A college can teach you to the maximum extent by creating presentations but these online courses give this information in an animated form which takes hours into making. PowerPoint presentations by your college teachers or a fully animated online course by professionals having millions of students? You know the clear winner here.
Colleges need to understand that they must reduce their fees or it won’t be long that students start opting for online courses over joining colleges. The same effect can be seen in recent times in the US where a college degree has lost its value as more and more students are opting for self learning because of the college’s high fee structure.
*Elon Musk college degree not imp*
Now, this situation was never foreseen obviously. So as usual there are many many students who have already paid the college’s fees. Now this includes a lot. Tuition fees, development fees, lab, mess, canteen, extracurricular activities fees and also hostel fees(for hostelers). And now what are the students actually receiving? Just an online class. Now I know that’s the best we can do during this lock down and yeah it’s appreciable. But is paying for something we’re not even using, acceptable? Think about it.
TEACHERS:
Be it any educational system, colleges or even schools, none of their campus, canteen, electricity or anything is being used now. It’s just an online class that is being conducted. And that too, by whom? The college? Nope. It’s the teachers and professors who are using their own personal laptops and mobile phones and making this online lecture possible. Majority of professors and teachers are new to this online teaching but still they’re giving it their all. They face certain problems like technical issues, lack of confidence,etc but still the work is being done. Now a post recently went viral in which a teacher was being bullied by some students as he didn’t know how to use the system properly. *Instagram Post*
I can say this from my own personal experience that these things are real and teachers are actually being bullied by the students for not knowing the technologies properly. They are adapting but it will take some time. And I agree that even after that they will never be able to match the level of teaching from an actual online course.
But is it justifiable if these teachers and professors are denied their salary whereas students are being charged the same fees? Yes, teachers’ salaries are being reduced by more than 50% on the pretext that they are being paid for their efforts, whereas the same teachers are being used as an excuse to not reduce our fees.
A college provides a classroom, whiteboard, chalk and all the amenities that the teachers need. But now it is all pushed onto the teachers. Teachers are using their own laptops and paying for the internet connection. They are buying whiteboards by themselves to teach their students. Yet they are facing salary cuts. This is not acceptable at all and we should definitely make awareness about how messed up our system is.
PARENTS:
The students who are currently in kindergarten or in primary i.e. 1st to 4th grade totally depend on their parents to teach them. The schools have asked the parents to sit together with their child during the online lectures. These parents are trying to make their ends meet and the schools expect them to sit with their children during work hours and still pay them the same fees?
These parents are actually teaching their children because they are too small to be taught online. How can you possibly teach a child to write without actually holding his hand and guiding him? In such a case the schools should definitely not be allowed to even ask fees from them let alone reduce it. Now here I am talking about the top schools which have a lot of fees and not govt led schools. Now a major question is then how will teachers or the staff be paid?
Let’s understand some things. Are you using the canteen? Or classrooms? Or even the labs? No. So definitely the electricity bill is being saved by the colleges. And if you think it is a small amount, trust it isn’t, especially for engineering colleges having huge equipment running on electricity.
Apart from this the colleges have fixed allocated funds reserved for any development or infrastructure projects. Now that students are not using these places they can utilize these funds for paying the teachers full salary rather than taking so much fees from the students. The Gujarat govt has come out with a very good order that unless the lock down gets over private schools and colleges cannot ask for fees from its students. I hope such directives are taken all over India and that too quickly. Because right now all of us are confused about what to expect.
SOLUTIONS:
First, the colleges should provide a definite amount to its students as to what they are charging for. They should give the total breakdown for the college fees. They should wait for the lockdowns to get over and then only start taking fees.
Second, the communication between the college and the students should be both ways rather than the colleges just asking for the fees. Colleges and schools should take the feedback from their students and parents in order to understand their problems well.
Third, The money saved by not using the various classrooms or labs should be used to give salary to the teachers.
Fourth, Any wrong demands from the colleges should be struck down immediately. Incidents such as colleges asking students to pressurize their friends into paying the fees or else they’ll not start teaching should be struck down immediately. There have been incidents where the colleges have even asked parents to give their bank statements on the pretext of checking if they can pay the fees or not. Such things should be stopped and people bring these incidences to light.
Fifth, we as students need to help each other financially as well as emotionally. I can definitely say that there is at least one friend of yours who is going through a very tough time due to the lock-downs and is doing weak financially. Help them because they cannot even go asking for help.
Sixth, Apart from this the colleges should also see to it that they do not pressurize the students into paying the fees. They should be made aware of all the scholarships that they can get. These are your students and they define how you look to the outside world. Treat them well and make sure that you are actually hearing their pleas and I can assure you that it will just end up creating a very good reputation of your college which is quite important these days.
If you look at it closely it is really a win win situation.
