Students pursuing bachelors program in computer application at Islamia College of Science and Commerce here have accused the authorities hiking the exam fee arbitrarily.
The students said the ongoing COVID19 pandemic has hit every person economically, but the authorities at the College were insensitive towards the situation and were overcharging the exam fee.
A student said the educational institutions remained closed for the past five months. “In such a situation there has been zero maintenance cost and other expenses incurred by the College,” the student said.
He said they did not use laboratories, libraries or participated in any workshop but were forced to pay for these facilities by the College authorities.
“We paid the exams fees for our 4th semester despite the fact that we didn’t utilize any resource of the College,” said another student.
The students demanded 50 percent curtailment in exam fee on humanitarian grounds, citing majority of the students were not able to afford the fee owing to the prevailing circumstances.
“If our fee is not curtailed then we have no other option than to stage protest,” said the students.
Principal of the College, Prof Sheikh Aijaz Ahmad said they have received requests from their students for curtailing exam fee. “However we have been charging the fee as per the government order and there was no concession announced by government,” Prof Ahmad said. “We have told them (the students) that they can apply for scholarship on National Scholarship portal.”
Earlier, students pursing B.Ed at Cluster University Srinagar (CUS) and Directorate of Distance Education in Kashmir University also staged protest against the hike in exam fee.
Following the protest, Cluster University authorities decided that no student will be charged anything on account of examination development fund, IT charges, hot and cold charges.
The notification in this regard was issued by Controller examination CUS. “The students have to pay Rs 325 per subject as examination fee,” the notification reads, adding that the candidates who have already deposited the fee and have paid money for examination development fund, IT charges, hot and cold charges will get it adjusted in their subsequent semesters.
Also, the University has extended the date for submission of online B.Ed exam forms till August 16. The dates have been extended for the students of regular batch-2019 and backlog candidate of 2018-19 and regular students of M.Ed, second semester batch-2019, who are set to appear in the exams.