Utkal University charges higher fee for distance education

Updated on: Wednesday, November 07, 2012

At Rs 12 to Rs 14 tuition fee a month, state universities offer education at a very nominal cost in the regular mode. However, when it comes to distance learning, Utkal University has been levying fees that is 10 times higher than the regular courses.

Anyone doing MA degree in any state university in subjects such as history, Odia, political science, among others, spends around Rs 2,000 on course fee, tuition fee, admission and other related fees in two years. However, to get the same course in distance mode (not self-financing), one has to spend over Rs 18,000 in Utkal University. This is keeping economically-weaker sections from pursuing distance courses.

Besides annual course fee of Rs 7,000 and examination fee of around Rs 1000, Utkal charges a corpus fee of around Rs 3,000 and soft skill development charge (SSDC) of Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,000 from distance learners. The corpus fee is not used for the students in any way while students said there are hardly any skill development initiatives such as communication or computer expertise programmes.

Sambalpur University and Berhampur University don't charge these two fees; their course fees are marginally lesser. Utkal takes a course fee of Rs 50,000 for MBA compared to Rs 45,000 in Sambalpur. Taking into consideration Utkal's SSDC and corpus, a student in Utkal ends up paying Rs 61,000 compared to Rs 45,000 in Sambalpur for MBA in distance mode.

For undergraduate courses, Utkal charges a course fee of Rs 12,000 to 15,000 for three years in distance mode compared to around Rs 800 to 1,000 fee levied by the government in the regular mode in state colleges. Though the government doesn't charge tuition fee from girls at the UG or PG level in regular mode, the varsities have no such relaxation for the fairer sex opting for distance learning.

"I joined BA in Utkal since I can't attend regular classes because of my work. But the fee is very high," said a DDCE student who works as siksha sahayak (teacher). A large chunk of UG students in Utkal DDCE are police constables, siksha sahayaks and hotel employees.

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