IN THE last couple of decades after liberation, the government has been expanding educational institutions but facilities so far created have measurably failed to meet the growing need of the population.
From pre-liberation time, the private sector has been supplementing government efforts in East Pakistan, present Bangladesh. Nowadays, fees and other charges of educational institutions, particularly at higher secondary level, undergraduate and graduate levels, are so high that even the middle-class people are facing tremendous difficulties to keep up. The president of Bangladesh urged in several convocation ceremonies to reduce tuition and other charges of private universities to make the education expense affordable for the general mass. But, in reality, his concern went in vain.
In this circumstance, the government should come forward to help the guardians financially. It can exempt the expenditure figure from the taxable income, which a guardian formally pays to private universities as tuition and other fees for their children. Excluding formal tuition and other fees of private educational institutions from a guardian’s taxable income will be a great relief.
I would thus like to urge the government to exempt formal tuition and other charges a guardian pays, especially to the private universities, for their children from the taxable income.
Md Ashraf Hossain
Dhaka