Fee reimbursement: Colleges launch locker facility for safe keeping of original certificates

Hyderabad: Payment-based locker facility is the new scheme that several private unaided engineering and professional colleges have introduced to the parents and students who studied, completed and left the colleges in the last two to three years.

According to the sources, the colleges have devised the new scheme after failing to convince the students and their parents to pay the pending college fees to take back their certificates left with the college.

Speaking to The Hans India, Dean of Students Welfare, a prominent engineering institution considered one among the top 10 in the city, said, "Some students who have got campus recruitments have paid the fees without bothering about the fee reimbursement. Because they lose the job offers if the original certificates are not submitted within the time given by the companies. However, several students who did not qualify during campus recruitment in the last couple of years have not collected their originals."

The original certificates of students were held back for non-clearance of the fee reimbursement dues. However, several colleges allowed students who qualified in the campus recruitments to take copies of the originals so that they could join the companies, "giving an undertaking that final provisional and degree certificates would be submitted on a letter date."

Students falling under this category are clearing the pending dues within a couple of months. However, the number of campus recruitments since COVID-19 has gone down across the board.

There are 40 to 60 per cent of students in several colleagues who have not received offer letters via the campus recruitment process.

Original certificates of most of these students have been piling up in the colleges. The colleges tried to convince parents to clear the dues and take the certificates. However, they are getting positive responses from the students, and some students openly say that they cannot pay.

Against this backdrop, now, the colleges have sent messages to the students saying that they have to clear the dues and take back the original certificates within a given time frame. Failing, the college will collect rental charges for the safekeeping of certificates like the locker facility offered by the banks for safe safekeeping of valuables.