Students at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) protested against the “unaffordable fee structure” on Tuesday after similar protests by students at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s (JNU). IIMC students staged a strike on the campus against the high tuition fee and “unruly” hostel and mess charges.

The students threatened to not pay the fee for the second semester if their demands were not met. According to reports, students burned the fee notification circular for the second semester. The notification said that the students would have to pay Rs 80,000 for the upcoming semester of Radio and TV journalism out of the total fee of Rs 1,68,500. Last year, the fee was Rs 1,45,000 while Rs. 1,32,000 the year before that. Meanwhile, the revised fee for Advertising and PR, the fee is Rs 1,31,500, for Hindi and English Journalism it is Rs 95,500, and Rs 55,500 for Urdu Journalism.

Hostel charges cost around Rs 6,500 for women and Rs 4,800 for men every month, the students said. They also complained that not every student gets accommodation in hostels.

Hrishikesh, a student of Radio & TV Journalism at IIMC said, “We cannot allow media institutes to be accessible only to the people who can afford to pay lakhs. Education, after all, is a right and not a privilege.”

The administration met with the students and assured them of looking into their students’ demands. A senior official of the institute told Hindustan Times, “Administration has not turned a blind eye to their demands. DG has met students twice and assured that their demands will be looked at. We have also set up a Committee of Course Directors to look into the genuine demands. Besides, we have skill-oriented PG diploma courses which are akin to ‘self-finance courses’ offered under the collegiate system, where the course fee is normally much higher than the regular courses.”

Source: PTI