Chennai: The Anna University has decided to give students lagging behind just one more chance to clear their pending papers. Those with arrears pending between the 2011 Regulations and now can clear it by the end of this year, the university's syndicate has decided.
Some student bodies and also individual students have been petitioning the government-a students' group had met with higher education minister last year and pleaded for an opportunity to clear their arrears. It was said the minister passed on the request to the Anna University.
Meanwhile, the Syndicate at its meeting that took up several critical issues weighing down the University also looked into the case of students with arrears-it was found that there are 30,000 to 40,000 students with arrears in Anna University and with the affiliated colleges.
It was then decided to give these students "just one more chance" to clear the arrears by conducting special examination during November-December, charging them a separate fee in addition to the regular exam fee.
"The University is giving these students one last opportunity to complete their course and get their degrees. We hope many will benefit", said Anna Vice-Chancellor M K Surappa.
Talking of fees and extra fees, the Syndicate has also decided to hike, by almost three times, the tuition fees from the coming academic year. Consequently, students would have to pay Rs 20,000 a year as against the prevailing Rs 8,500, said the university officials.
They point out that the fees was last revised in 1999 and the expenses far exceeded the income in a situation where the government grants hardly matched the budget deficits and burden of inflation. "The private institutions with far less facilities have been charging multiple times more compared to the fees collected by us. And even after the increase in our fees, we will still be much lower when compared to other technical colleges and Central Government institutions", said an official.
