Fees making uni a place only for the rich

HIGHER university fees are starting to put students off studying for higher qualifications this year.
Mary Louise Avu, a second-year law student at the University of Papua New Guinea who featured in our newspaper yesterday, is one of many who will be going down that road.
Mary Louise is working towards a second degree having graduated with a Bachelor in Economics from UPNG in 2008.
She joined the police force in 2012 and, like any other driven young woman, grabbed the opportunity for a second degree last year as a first-year law student.
Last year, her family paid K2999 but with the whopping increase by K4000, her family is not able to help her. Her dream of becoming a lawyer has been cut short.
It seems that now entering university is no longer for those who are academically bright, but only for those who have the money.
Education is supposed to open opportunities for people and lift them out of poverty.
But miscellaneous fees, aside from the costs that parents must shoulder to send their children to school such as daily transport, often force poor families to stop their children from going to school as soon as they have learnt to read, write and perform basic mathematics.
If Mary Louise is struggling to meet the tuition fees for the 2018 year, how can a family
whose main source of income is the land and sea be able to send a son or daughter to university today?
There is a lot wrong with the fee system, but although it is impossible to count those who are deterred, the number of school-leavers from poor backgrounds is rising.
Higher education used to be a privilege for the few, not a service for the many.
However, the purpose of fees have turned a degree into a consumer product that will respond to market forces.
Education is now a business.
Teachers’ salaries, maintenance and other operating expenses must be adjusted regularly for inflation.
Facilities, especially IT equipment, must be constantly upgraded.
Even government-run schools where tuition is free, charge fees.
It is clear to students that none of this represents progress — especially for disadvantaged groups which often rely on and value exactly the things that are lost when education is viewed as a business.
Allowing “the best” universities to increase fees will deepen the divide and entrench a two-tier higher education system – based on wealth and prestige, not learning and opportunity.
How can education be a way to create better life opportunities when working-class students are set back from the start?
An increase in school fees can swell the ranks of school dropouts.
Education gets the biggest chunk of the annual national appropriation after debt payments. But the funding is still inadequate.
Educational institutions need funds to sustain operations and, for the private sector, to earn a reasonable profit.
The government must find ways to ensure that regular tuition increases will not worsen the school dropout rate.
When it comes to investing in the nation’s human resources, no one should be left behind.