Vocational courses to become costlier

Vocational courses to become costlier

Vocational education in the state is set to become costlier, if a proposal asking for an increase in the fees for the short-term courses is passed. The fees for these courses, which currently cost between Rs2,000 to Rs5,000, will be increased significantly once the newly-designed formula for deciding fee structure is put in place. The Directorate of Vocational Education and Training (DVET) is currently awaiting the final official nod to the proposal. “Taking into account inflation and the kind of technical and logistic support required to conduct vocational classes, it is difficult to continue.with the current fees. These old fees in our department are very low compared to fees for similar courses offered by private institutes,” said a senior official from DVET. JD Bhutange, the director of the department, confirmed the news, saying, “The department is considering the proposal, but no final decision has been taken yet.” Usually, other institutes increase the fees by a certain percentage every year. As most students seeking admission for vocational courses come from underprivileged families, they would not be able to afford the high fees. Hence, DVET officials have devised a formula as per which the total expenditure for the course will be divided by the number of students studying that course. Then, around 75% of this amount will be finalised as the fee for the course. “Most of these students take admission with the help of schemes and other policies which make the education free for them,” said the official.