Assam is all set to create history by providing free first year of college education. This benefit shall accrue to all those students whose parents’ annual income is less than or equal to 1 lakh per annum.
This initiative was announced by Himanta Biswa Sarma, Education Minister for Assam. This initiative would be implemented in the current year itself. In order to achieve a smooth implementation of the initiative, the government has firmly communicated that no college in Assam would demand fees from the students who are desirous of taking admissions in higher secondary, first year of a three year degree course or polytechnic diploma course. Apart from this, the students belonging to low income group strata would be exempted from paying admission as well as tuition fees.
Currently this initiative will cover 310 government and provincialised colleges that cater to almost 50,000-60,000 students. Presently private institutions are not a part of this initiative. In the current year, the government has to spend additional INR 70 crores and with the passage of time, the amount is said to increase.
At present, this initiative is limited to Humanities stream only, but talks are in progress to include medical as well as engineering colleges under the purview of this scheme.
To ensure that the right candidates are benefitting from this initiative, Himanta Sarma stressed that the colleges will ask for parents’ income certificates before giving admission to any student in their college. The students will have to provide a detailed evidence of their parents’ income either in the form of salary slips in case the parents are state or central government staff, or employer’s certificate or proof of income by circle officer, in the case where they are private sector employees.
If due to some reason a student is unable to arrange the documents, then the college admission committee can give free admission to the student based on their wisdom, stated the Education Minister.
Citing the ministry’s motto ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’, Himanta Sarma stated that the main reason why private institutions have been excluded from this initiative is, because they provide employment to the people. In case this regulation is forced upon them, many institutions may close down due to which unemployment will also increase.
More or less, this is a very good initiative taken by Assam to ensure that opportunities for higher education are provided to people from every strata.
