Aceh students demand free tuition

Aceh students demand free tuition

Fadli, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh

Hundreds of Syiah Kuala University students protested on the
Banda Aceh campus on Thursday to demand that their tuition be
waived and that the rector resign for attempting to force them to
pay tuition beginning on Feb. 14.

Muhammad Subhan, vice president of the Unsyiah Students Big
Family association, told The Jakarta Post some 500 students held
the protest in response to a circular from Rector Abdi Abdul
Wahab requiring the students to re-register and pay their tuition
starting on Feb. 14.

"Many students were victims of the (tsunami) disaster and many
of them are still living in shelters after losing their homes.
How can the rector not see (their suffering) and issue a
regulation requiring them to re-register and pay their tuition on
time? If we don't pay, we might not be able to study this
semester," Muhammad said.

The students, he said, want their tuition waived this semester
and are demanding the rector step down for his failure to
recognize the students' suffering.

"We (students) demand the replacement of the Unsyiah rector.
Find another person who understands the students' situation," he
said.

The protest started at 10 in the morning and lasted until
about 1 p.m.

"I am now live under Lamnyo bridge because there's nowhere
else to live. I came to Banda Aceh from Sigli because I have to
re-register. I wonder how the rector can ignore our suffering,"
said Usman, a 24-year-old student in the university's School of
Law.

Students are required to pay Rp 450,000 (US$50) every semester
in tuition, a huge amount for those students who lost everything
in the tsunami.

"If we didn't have to pay tuition, we could use the money to
buy a bed or to find another boarding house. I only have the
clothes that I am wearing now. All of my books and my bed were
lost in the tsunami," Usman said.

Rector Abdi Abdul Wahab was not at the university during the
protest.

The rector's deputy of student affairs, Azhar Puteh, met with
the protesting students and said the university would make
exceptions for students affected by the tsunami.

He said students affected by the disaster had to fill in a
form to have their tuition waived. Those students not affected by
the tsunami were still required to pay tuition.

According to data from the university, of its 23,000 students,
9,000 of them lost their houses or relatives in the Dec. 26
tsunami. There is no available data on the number of students who
died in the disaster.

"The policy is very reasonable. We hope the students not
affected pay their tuition, considering the high operational
costs of the campus," he said. "I hope the students understand."

He said the university's operations costs would be about Rp
5.6 billion this semester.