For social sciences PhDs, ₹2,000 fee has been revised to ₹20,000; for science courses, it's up from ₹2,500 to ₹25,000.
College of Arts and Social Sciences at the Osmania University in Hyderabad. (Creative Commons)
27-year-old Nelli Satya completed his Master’s in Political Science in 2018 and waited for Osmania University (OU) in Hyderabad to conduct the PhD entrance examination.
However, now that he has got selected for the 2022-23 academic year, he faces a new challenge.
“They have increased the fees hugely. I am unable to pay this huge amount. My father passed away long back and my mother is a daily wager,” Satya, a native of Jilkonta village in Balmur mandal of Nagarkurnool district, told South First.
Like Satya, several PhD scholars are stranded by the Osmania Univerity’s decision to increase the fee for PhD courses.
After a gap of six years, Osmania University issued a PhD admission notification on 16 March, where it also announced a hike in the annual fees — a whopping tenfold increase.
According to the students, the course fee for PhD research students of social sciences, arts, education, commerce, management, and Oriental languages, which was ₹2,000, has been hiked to ₹20,000 annually.
Similarly, for the scholars of sciences, engineering, technology, and pharmacy, the course fee used to be ₹2,500. The university has now asked them to pay ₹25,000.
The students now plan to stage a protest on Saturday, 25 March, against the administration’s decision.
Apart from calling for a rollback of the Osmania University fee hike, the students are also demanding that the varsity provide them with regular scholarships and hostel facilities.
Several students are also miffed over a clause in the notification which denies admission unless the student provides an undertaking that they will not ask for the hostel facilities.
Meanwhile, the last day to pay the fee and complete the admission process was on 21 March. However, after the students requested the varsity, the date was extended to 25 March.
According to administration sources, around 300 students have been enrolled in PhD courses at Osmania University.
While claiming that the university is giving irrational reasons for the fee hike, Satya said, “We gave representations to different deans, but they said it’s the university’s decision, not ours. We are not in authority to specify this. Deans in the Standing Council said they did not approve of the hike. Most of the students in the OU are from a rural background.”
He added that students across Telangana choose the OU due to its lower fee structure.
Students giving representation to a Dean. (Supplied)
Another student and senior research fellow, P Sandeep Kumar, who will be now entering the second year, told South First that the hike is a result of the Union government introducing the National Education Policy (NEP) in 2020.
“The Central government is responsible for this hike as education comes in the concurrent list of the Constitution and higher education is controlled by them. All these guidelines about increasing fees are done after following UGC (University Grants Commission) norms,” he claimed.
He added that the government is also privatising education and making it a source of profit.
“Education is being treated as a commodity and OU is not isolated in this issue. After NEP 20, commercialisation has been streamlined in Indian education. It also enhances caste and class inequality and relaxation to marginalised sections will get hampered by this fee hike decision,” Sandeep pointed out, appealing to the administration to reconsider its decision.
A political science scholar, R Noorin, who is yet to pay the fee, believes that this decision is harsh and affects everyone, but more so the women scholars.
“There are women scholars I know who come from rural, conservative and marginalised backgrounds. They don’t have much financial support in their family to fund their education. On top of it, some of them are married and have children too. So funding gets even more difficult,” Noorin told South First.
“Even if they borrow money, there is uncertainty regarding government exams,” Noorin said, adding that all these factors are adding to the anxieties of women students
Noorin pointed out that a fee hike is not good for conducting research and public institutions should not charge such exorbitant amounts.
“To pay the fee, students also do odd jobs or either teach. So in the end their research is hampered,” she claimed
The students also demand the varsity provide scholarships to every PhD scholar.
“Only JRF students get fellowships through UGC and the OU does not provide any scholarship of its own,” Noorin said.
The Osmania University Vice Chancellor D Ravinder Yadav called the decision of fee hike a calculated and routine decision.
“In the last 20 years, the fee has not been increased at the OU. Now the whole structure has changed as we are following UGC guidelines. We have to provide several facilities to the students such as inviting experts for the selection of candidates, conducting regular seminars and others. So the Dean’s offices require money for that as they suffer from lack of funds” he told South First.
While noting that the standing committee comprising of Dean Faculties recommended the hike in fee, the VC said, “It was a joint decision after a comparative analysis of fee structures of other universities such as Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and other such universities.”
While the VC claimed that many PhD students have already paid the fee, Nelli Satya denied it. Noorin said that as the entrance took place after a lot of gaps, some students are eager to join the course and are not going against the decision.
The VC also noted that the eligible students can apply for scholarships and avail of fee reimbursement from the government. “They will get a tuition fee of around ₹30,000,” he said.
About the hostel facilities, he noted that owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, thesis work of many students got delayed and they did not vacate the hostel.
“That is why we had to put the clause in the notification as right now we cannot provide hostel accommodation to any student. However, as soon as the construction of two new hostels is completed, all students can apply to avail of them,” the VC said.
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