COVID-19 has completely devastated our environment. Every individual is struggling to cope with the challenges brought by the pandemic. However, there isn’t a single sector which is not being impacted, the education sector, in particular, has also been hit hard as it had to immediately shift their way of operating.
Several colleges and universities have started conducting online classes for the remaining of the semester. However, since the cost of college education in India has been rapidly increasing, students have now started feeling that they are at the raw end of the deal. Students have been continuously demanding partial fee refund. However, the question of legal backing to such demand remains unanswered to date.
The relationship between a student and a college have two unique aspects. Firstly, the colleges do not provide a traditional service for profit as provided under commercial laws. And as the Supreme Court has held that education is a distinct constitutional goal and therefore, is a public good. Secondly, students don’t have the same bargaining power as that of college and thus the college always have certain leverage over the students. Recognising this unique relationship, the University Grants Commission being a regulator for higher education in India and owing the liability of protecting the students. The UGC Act, 1956, integrated the responsibility of UGC to maintain the standards of teaching, examination and research. Further, Section 12A of the Act provides the explicit power to the UGC to provided regulation and scale for the fee to be charged by colleges and universities in public interest.
Therefore, even a student having a remedy against the college in which they study, a stronger alternate case lies against the UGC as it has not provided any of the regulation for the refund of fees.
The Supreme Court, held in Modern Dental College v. State of Madhya Pradesh while examining the constitutionality of an act introduced in the state of Madhya Pradesh to regulate the process of admission and fee has repeated that a college cannot charge a fee which is beyond the scope of fulfilling the purpose of education. In simpler terms, a college is never allowed to profit from operating an educational institution. The court has regularly repeated that education is not a business but a charity. Maintaining such a moral outlook towards education have further allowed the Supreme Court to limit the scope of fees of colleges only to the extent of cost of operating an institution and a reasonable leftover. Any income beyond this scope would be considered as profiteering which has been explicitly decided to be illegal.
The prohibition of profiteering in the field of education provides foundation to our very first argument that shifting classes to online changes the costs for operating an institution and therefore create instances of profiteering. Difference in cost is institution specific depending on the commitment of each college and in some cases, there would be no reduction. However, a regulation still has to be present to protect the students in case there is any reduction in cost. One such reduction that UGC may exclusively deal with is change in cost of the variables such as expenditure on electricity and cost of operating any kind of accommodation service. The regulation should be provided as if there is any reduction of cost, there must be a reduction in the fees as well. If the benefit of such reduction is not transferred to the students, it would directly lead to colleges earning beyond the standard as provided by the Supreme Court and hence, would be considered illegal.
In 2019, UGC proposed draft regulations to regulate the fees of colleges, however, no further action was taken with respect to it. Now, among other things, COVID-19 has highlighted such gaps in our education regulatory system as well and has negatively impacted the rights of students. It should be considered as an opportunity to arrive at regulations to ensure that there should be balance between student’s right to access education and college’s right to operate an institution.
