Daily Times

In a trickle-down effect, after drastic cuts in Higher Education Commission (HEC) budget by incumbent government, the Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) has decided to offer more admissions in many bachelor programmes on self-finance to fill financial deficit which would affect the students ultimately, as they would have to pay extra fee.

According to the documents available with Daily Times, while finding no other option the varsity’s concerned internal authorised bodies approved admissions in evening shifts in 24 departments to fill gape of millions of rupees monitory loss being faced annually by the varsity.

According to the Vice Chancellor Dr Muhammad Ali, the university is facing annual deficit of Rs 500 million. The purpose of offering these admissions, he claimed, is purely to mend these financial deficiencies. When asked about the Academic Council’s final decision, the meeting of which held yesterday (Tuesday), the VC, however, did not respond.

As per general legal practice, the decision was wetted by three internal forums those supposed to make such kind of strategies. The forums included as Chairpersons, Board of Faculty (BoF) and Academic Council. The available information stated that the said evening shift admissions have been deliberately approved by chairpersons and BoF and Academic Council in three separate meetings.

According to the decision, the students of Management Sciences, IT BA/LLB, Computer Sciences, Pharma-D have to pay Rs 34100 additional that is Rs 99,200 per semester as compare Rs 65,100 on regular (university finance) fee system.

Similarly, students of all other BS Programmes have to pay Rs 36500 extra that is Rs 99,300 per semester than Rs 62800 on regular fee mechanism.

The university approved evening admissions in BS Chemistry, BS Earth Sciences, BS Electronics, BS Mathematics, BS Physics, BS Statistics, BS Animal Sciences, BS Bio chemistry, BS Environmental Sciences, BS Microbiology, BS Plant sciences, BS Biotechnology, Diploma in Pharmacy, BS Management Sciences, BS Anthropology, BS Sociology, BS Defense and Strategic Studies, BS Economics, BS History, BS IR, BS Area Study Centre, BS Gender Studies, BS Psychology, BS Pakistan Studies and Linguistics.

The VC Dr Ali explained that 60 percent of revenues from collected fee through BS evening programmes would be given to respective department while rest 40 percent would be sent in university’s funds to meet the other needs as per prescribed procedure.

The sources said that in evening shift university offers at least 40 seats for admission in one discipline. According to which, if all offering seat fill, one department of the varsity would earn around Rs 7 million per semester while overall it would be accumulated around Rs 380 million per year.

Surprisingly, in May the QAU administration had also increased in overall fee of all degree programmes from BS to PhD for both regular and self-finance students. Not only this, increase with same ratio in hostel dues was also practiced while similar fee hike directions were also imposed for affiliated colleges of the varsity in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).

In Bachelor academic programmes, the university had increased fees for BS management sciences, BS computer science, information technology, Pharm-D from Rs 59,022 to Rs 64,925 for regular students, while the students wishing to enrol in these disciplines on self-finance will have to pay Rs 69,021.

Similarly, the fee for all rest of BS programmes has been increased from Rs 59,896 to Rs 65,885 for regular students.

A senior official of the QAU said while wishing anonymity that university is already charging heavy fee. “It was sole varsity has room wherein a student, who is genius and having excellent academic performance record but can’t afford university education, would get admission while paying nominal fee to complete his/her education”, he recalled adding that but now it’s a distant dreams for them to seek education mere on their academic performance the money/fiances, he explained, would fundamental requirement.

However, another senior official in the administration put all blames on incumbent government which deducted over 40 percent of chunk from HEC budget in annual budget 2019-20 passed in recent. While explaining, the official said that varsity was two options either to shut down or increase in fee to avoid further burden of financial loss.