CTA’s Education Kalon raises issue of fee hike for foreigners applied to Tibetan students with JNU Vice-Chancellor, administrators

DHARAMSALA, 2 May: The Education Minister of the Central Tibetan Administration(CTA) has raised the issue of the exorbitant fee hike for foreign students applied unfairly to Tibetan students at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) during her meeting with the Vice-Chancellor and the administrators of the University.

CTA’s Education Minister Tharlam Dolma Changra and Secretary Jigmey Namgyal have met with the Vice-Chancellor Prof. Santishree D Pandit of JNU on Saturday and apprised the problems faced by Tibetan students in JNU after the fee hike, reports www.tibet.net, the CTA’s official website.

According to the report, the minister has informed the Vice-Chancellor that the “Tibetan students studying at JNU are primarily third and fourth generation Tibetans in India whose schoolings were completed at Tibetan schools affiliated with CBSE.”

She has further appealed to the Vice-Chancellor to “understand the predicaments of Tibetan students” whose financial status “can not peer with other international students.”

JNU’s fee hike for foreign students affected in July 2019 was applied unfairly to Tibetan students treating them as foreigners rather than refugees in India unlike the other Educational institutions across the country.

Following this, an urgent appeal letter penned by concerned Tibetan Students at JNU declared that “the 1000 per cent fee hike for Tibetan students at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is posing grave challenges to Tibetan students to complete studies and get admission.”

The fees for International students studying humanities were raised from 200$ to 2,400$ per year while for the science students it was increased from 200$ to 3,400$.

And this steep fee hike has “negatively impacted the strength of Tibetan students in JNU,” the students said

Previously, the students have approached the likes of the JNU Administration, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Bureau of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Office, New Delhi, CTA and some influential Tibetans to redress their grievances, but to no avail.

As JNU continues to charge Tibetan students with fees applicable to other Foreign students like those from the US, Europe, Australia, Korea, Japan, China, Thailand and Vietnam, the strength of Tibetan students in the university has now dwindled.