Education is not business

The Supreme Court has said that tuition fee should always be affordable and education is not a business to earn profit, as it upheld the Andhra Pradesh High Court judgment to quash the state government’s decision to enhance the tuition fee in medical colleges to Rs 24 lakh per annum. A bench of Justices M.R. Shah and Sudhanshu Dhulia said to enhance the fee unilaterally would be contrary to the objects and purpose of Andhra Pradesh Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admissions and Prohibition of Capitation Fee) Act, 1983 as well as the Rules, 2006 and the decision of this court in the case of P.A. Inamdar.To enhance the fee to Rs 24 lakh per annum i.e., seven times more than the fee fixed earlier was not justifiable at all. Education is not the business to earn profit. The tuition fee shall always be affordable, it said in its judgment on Monday.The bench said the determination of fee or review of fee should be within the parameters of the fixation rules and shall have direct nexus on the factors mentioned in Rule 4 of the Rules, 2006, namely location of the professional institution, the nature of the professional course, the cost of available infrastructure, the expenditure on administration and maintenance, a reasonable surplus required for growth and development of the professional Institution and so on.