Covid-19 has completely disrupted our environment. Everyone is struggling mentally, physically and financially to cope with the challenges the pandemic has brought. While there isn’t a single sector which hasn’t felt the impact, the education sector, in particular, has been hit hard as it had to immediately shift its way of operating.

The relationship between a student and a college has two unique aspects. First, colleges do not provide a traditional service for profit as defined under commercial laws. The Supreme Court has previously held that education is a distinct constitutional goal and therefore, is a public good. Second, students do not have the same bargaining power as a college and thus the college has certain leverage over students. Recognizing this unique relationship, the university grants commission (UGC) acts as a regulator of higher education in India with the responsibility of protecting the students. The UGC ACT, 1956, crystallizes the responsibility of UGC to maintain the standards of teaching, examination and research. Further, Section 12a of the act provides explicit power to the UGC to provided regulation and scale the fee to be charged by colleges and universities in public interest. According to the UGC guidelines, plenty of the colleges are resuming studies by an online methodology for the health, safety and greater good of the humanity.

By looking at the current scenario of Indian economy, over the past few months many families have gone bankrupt or are facing recession of a great extent. Unemployment and unavailability of work for the parents should not hinder the studies of their children. The colleges have remained shut from mid March 2020 till date and counting. The energy supplies and infrastructure of the institutes haven’t been in use ever since which results in reduction of operational costs by 60%. We request the educational department to look in the matter and wave off our fees by considering the above mentioned facts.

It is our responsibility as a community to generate well-informed and empathetic responses during this crisis. Sign my petition so that we can together remove any fear and stigma attached to this pandemic, and create an empowered community. I request everyone to give your opinion what education management has to do, how they should take forward the classes, how much fees to be charged for online classes, what support you seek from government so that we overcome this situation.

*We are not against paying fees* but we request the *government, Gujarat education minister, Education management, Education trustee* to reduce the fees to 50% and support everyone at this pandemic situation.