| Saturday, May 10, 2008
Fee for engg colleges in TN finalised
Chennai, May 9: An amicable settlement has been reached for
the long pending issue of fee revision for unaided engineering
colleges in the state. While the government stuck to its stand
of not changing the tuition fee for government quota seats,
the bureaucrats consented to allow an annual development fee
of Rs 2,500 per student. This was based on the condition that
the development fee should be used for strengthening, computing
and teaching infrastructure.
Enquiries on both sides revealed that the government had given
consent to the managements to collect Rs 65,000 as annual fees
for their quota. The consensus basically means the government
has met the college managements’ demands for differential
fees structure. The government said it could consider the demand
for another fee revision in case the sixth pay commission is
implemented.
The government had five to six rounds of negotiations with the
managements of unaided engineering colleges. All stakeholders
in Tamil Nadu engineering scenario have been eagerly waiting
for the announcement over the revision of fees chargeable by
unaided colleges in the state. The delay has a lot of stress
to parents and students, who say that they were left in the
dark about the issue.
Private engineering college managements have been seeking a
100 to 150 percent increase from the present Rs 32,500 fixed
by the government four years ago. The managements had contended
that they need at least Rs 60,000 as fees considering that not
only provide education, but also they complete training in soft
skills, which makes give students employable.
A chairperson of a private engineering college said, "Industries
recruit students with at least three types of skills (computing,
soft skills and problem solving capability). Several managements
spend at least Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 per student the third
and fourth year to provide these value adding skills. Other
than this, the cost of software has phenomenally gone up, although
hardware cost has come down significantly.
Courtesy: Deccan Chronicle
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