Nellore: Corporate colleges exploiting parents for online classes, students allege

• Many colleges are collecting an advance fee for the first-year Intermediate and also for engineering sessions. They are also demanding the first instalment for the second-year classes to get access to the online link

Nellore: Despite people facing numerous problems during the lockdown due to the shrinking economy, private and corporate colleges have started mounting pressure on the students asking them to pay the instalment for the next academic year for providing access to zoom video link enabling them to follow online classes.

In fact, the Union Government had allowed online classes, but the Board of Intermediate Education imposed some restrictions and allowed the classes for the competitive exams and others.

These colleges shouldn't conduct classes for Intermediate as the situation would impact admissions of the Government Junior and other private colleges.

But the guidelines fell on the deaf ears of the big Corporate Colleges and they happily started admissions for the first year and collecting fee dues from the second-year students threatening them they would miss the syllabus. They are now asking the students to deposit Rs. 15,000 immediately for accessing the zoom video link for following the classes from home. They are also calling the SSC students who are preparing for the public examinations slated to be held from July 10 up to 16. They are asking to deposit token advance and the students can join after the Government clears admission procedure.

Further, they are also collecting a portion of fees for the engineering classes asking them to opt their code at the time of actual admission though it is illogical. In fact, the Intermediate Students have to appear for the EAMCET, and the last date is June 15. But the Government postponed all competitive exams till further notification. These corporate colleges have started admissions saying the students would be missing seats in the institutions due to late admissions. So, they are collecting advances from the students, providing them the college codes to be used at the time of counselling.

Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad district convener G Manoj Kumar said that corporate colleges have started exploitation from the parents during the lockdown. They started online classes for the second-year Intermediate students asking them to pay 25 per cent of the fees as part of the first instalment for the online classes through zoom video link, he added.