Students, Parents slam Pricey Admission Forms
Lahore :20 July : As educational institutions including colleges and universities are all set to begin admission process from the next month, parents and students are concerned about fee of admission forms and prospectuses to get enrolled in these alma maters.
The admission process in colleges and universities normally kick off after results of matriculation, intermediate, bachelors and masters, which are usually announced in July and August every year.
For upcoming admission fall, private as well as public institutions has starting to gear up as they had ordered printing of admission forms and prospectuses which are major source of income for institutions.
Buying an admission form is compulsory for every student who wished to study further in any institute and alongside buy a prospectus with admission, which contains information about programmes offered by an institute, information about departments and faculty.
However, if a student wants to apply for admission in different departments of a single university he has to buy a different form for each programme or department. Irrespective of student secured an admission or not, the paid amount is non-refundable.
Meanwhile, no check and balance mechanism has been set by the government on these institutions which support them to bag desired amount from aspiring students.
Talking to Daily Times, students and parents raised concerns over the admission forms and prospectus issues and demanded Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif, Education Minister Rana Mashhod and other stakeholders to take notice on the issue and provide quality education to every student keeping in view their financial problems. Abuzar, a student waiting for result of intermediate exams, said he had visited almost all public and private universities for getting information about the admission in graduation and every one asked him to return next month for admission form and prospectus.
He said almost none of the university provided proper information regarding admission or programmes or departments. “If such information is already available on their website then why should be buy an expensive form that ranges from Rs 500 to Rs 2000,” he asked.
Father of student Kamran also raised the matter that in the era of globalisation where every thing was available on Internet then why public and private universities could not provide admission forms on Internet as they had already provided all information of prospectus on their websites. He urged Punjab government to direct these institutions to provide relief to students and their parents who had been visiting universities located in different parts of city.
“If admission forms are available on websites or online registration facility is given to students and their parents one could save his time” Kamran said.
Another student of bachelors, Amna, said she belonged to lower middle class family who could not bear huge fee of private university therefore when she went to public university. She added she observed no difference in admission form fee as public universities also asked to provide forms in August demanding the same amount.
She said people at public universities told her that admission forms and prospectus were in printing process and hoped this was the best time to stop institutions from printing forms and provide them online.
While criticising higher education department, she said its role was nothing in this regard, and believed that a relief to thousands of students could be provided if the higher education Punjab take measures in this regard.
