LATEST news reports said that the government has proposed 10 percent VAT on private universities, in addition to medical and engineering colleges justifying that they are using the facilities commercially making handsome profits. So naturally the government has the right to demand part of their income for use in meeting other budgetary expenditure. Fiscal experts are supportive of the move but there is also the growing fear that the burden will be eventually pass on to students to force their guardians to pay it in the form of a rise in tuition fees. The owners would continue to build their fortune. Students and their guardians have therefore demanded that the proposed VAT be scrapped. The Private Varsity owners also demanded the scrapping and media reports said some owners of private universities even warned of street agitation in the event such proposals were accepted in the budget. Earlier reports said the Finance Minister has also proposed VAT on English medium schools on the ground of high profiteering from exorbitant tuition fees. The proposal can’t be turned down altogether in the first place but question arises how owners would be restraint from passing the load on students while they would continue to enjoy the benefits. In fact the Awami League-led government had imposed 4.5 percent VAT on private universities in 2010 but was forced to backtrack following demonstration by students and opposition from powerful owners lobbies. Estimate suggests more than four lakh students study at 85 private universities at the moment where they pay from taka four to six lakhs for a graduate course, in addition to 20,000 students at 64 private medical colleges. They pay taka 10 lakhs to 20 lakhs for standard MBBS course. In English medium schools monthly tuition fees varies from taka four thousand to ten thousand. It shows they are earning enormous profit. The fact is that most students of the private universities and medical colleges come from middle-income families when they fail to secure admission at public universities and colleges. It is evident that owners of private educational institutions are taking advantage of the scarcity of government funded higher education facilities by charging exorbitant tuition fees from the students. There is no denying of the fact that owners of private universities and medical colleges belong to wealthy and powerful families enjoying patronization of the state and the government while exploiting the situation. What is advisable here is that the government must enact new law to stipulate the higher ceiling of tuition fees. But it can’t be easily expected in our system of governance. So demanding VAT from them is not unjustified provided that the government would make sure that such institutions would not be allowed to raise tuition fees any way to pass the burden on the students. We can’t help a system where higher education means higher tuition fees at the expense of the common people.
