PUNE: Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) has told colleges not to withhold mark sheets of students who could not pay their fees.
A notification to this effect was issued by the university earlier this week.
Students had complained to the authorities about their inability to apply for government scholarships simply because the colleges refused to give them their previous year’s mark sheet over their inability to pay the complete term fees.
Kamalakar Shete, a journalism student and an activist, said,“Due to Covid-19 pandemic, many students are enduring financial struggles and it is not possible for them to pay the entire tuition fee at once. Despite government orders stating that colleges should give concessions to such cases or give them the option of paying fee in instalments, many colleges are insisting on one time payment of fees.”
Shete wrote a letter to the Directorate of Higher Education in January seeking for strict action against colleges that were withholding mark sheets of the students.
“To apply for any scholarships, we need to upload the previous year’s mark sheet while filling the form online. However, we are getting complaints from many students that colleges are refusing to part with the original mark sheets, which in turn is leading to the aspirants not being able to fill the forms to get a scholarship because they have not paid their full fee. We want the universities to tell the affiliated colleges not to block anybody’s documents for any reason and also to take the requisite action against the ones who are doing so,” Shete said.
