Student groups oppose LU’s proposed fee hike

LUCKNOW: The finance committee of the University of Lucknow (LU) has proposed a steep hike in its fees from the 2018-2019 academic session. If the executive council approves the proposal on June 13, fees for some courses will be more than doubled. The university is also planning to introduce semester system in its undergraduate level courses from July.

As soon as the new fee structure was uploaded on LU’s website, it drew criticism from student organisations that called the hike “arbitrary” and said that they would “fight out the issue with varsity officials”.

The All India Students Democratic Association (AISDO) and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad criticised the proposed fee hike as well as the introduction of semester system in undergraduate level courses.

“The university has increased the fees for Bachelor of Arts courses by 60%, while fees for BCom and BSc courses have gone up by 10 to 20%,” said secretary of AISDO Dileep Kumar. “Considering that several students belong to marginalised sections, we condemn this hike,” he added.

Claiming that the move would force many students to seek admission in private colleges, the organisation accused the Bharatiya Janata Party government of “promoting privatisation of education”. The group has also called for a statewide protest, but reportedly some members are against the decision.