Of Capitation Fees

All forms of capitation fee educational institutions charge while admitting students will be banned. Whether called donation or development fee or whatever, all such extortive fees will be illegal. Violation will attract stringent punishment, including a fine of Rs 1 crore, according to a new law cleared by the Union cabinet on Wednesday. Private education institutions, specially engineering and medical colleges, usually charge anything between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 1 crore over and above the regular payments from students at the time of admission. In clearing the Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Technical Educational Institutions, Medical Educational Institutions and Universities Bill, the cabinet accepted several of the recommendations of a parliamentary standing committee, including that on re defintion of the broad term capitation fee. The definition has been made specific, essentially to plug all forms of extortive fees. The bill will be taken up by parliament in its winter session beginning on November 22.
Any fee collected from students over and above that decided by a government's fee fixation committee or an authorised body for technical education, medical institutions, regular and deemed universities will be construed as capitation fee. The parliamentary standing committee had advised that any amount 10 per cent in excess of tuition fee would be termed as capitation fee.
The government has gone a step further.
The government accepted 41 recommendations of the standing committee and rejected seven, an official spokesperson told media after the cabinet meeting.
A committee of the technical education department fixes the fee structure in consultation with different professional institutions in most states. The bill gives these committees statutory backing. Prompt and effective deterrent is not possible now in the absence of a central law prohibiting capitation fee and other unfair practices. The current policy aims to promote the autonomy of higher educational institutions, but the unfair practices adopted by educational institutes took away from the credibility of the sector, the spokesperson said. He said the bill sought to balance the institutes’ autonomy and protection of students’ interests.
The original bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in May last year, and the standing committee submitted its recommendations in May this year. The government has acceptedthe recommendation that the fine for charging capitation fee should be doubled to Rs 1 crore and there should be a minimum penalty for each offence.
Another addition in the reworked bill is that failure to meet any promise made in an institution’s prospectus will be an offence. There will be a mechanism to redress grievances in each institution for students before they approach the state educational tribunals.
The bill also includes measures to ensure that teachers are provided the prescribed remuneration and service conditions.
Four members of Parliament in the standing committee gave a dissent note on the bill.