We, Year 2 part time students, would like to express our total disagreement and personal deception about the way the University of Mauritius (UoM) has used its monopolistic power to abuse of part-time students.

We were informed by media that UoM?s fees would increase by 20% this year, compared to last year... but a drastic jump from total fees of Rs 28,800 in 2007 to Rs 39,100 this year in 2008 is much more than a 20% increase.

Furthermore, most of us have received the re-registration letter on Saturday 2nd of August, which clearly specified: ?that no payment facilities would be granted and fees should be settled in their full amount? on Friday 08th August 2008 ? as banks are closed on weekends; UOM gives us only four days to gather Rs 40,000 ! Some of us thought of taking loans, but banks and institutions ask for seven-day notice. Most of us are not able to pay this amount in so little time and have to ?postpone? some modules and extend our programme duration.

One school of thought might think that part time students should pay more because they form part of the working population, but if you attentively consider the case with nationality, most of us are part-timers because we have to work to sponsor our studies and other responsibilities and cannot afford the ?luxury? of being full-timers, and the fact that we do not have any NTA pass like full-timers does not help unburden our financial swelling university expenses.

We would also like you to take in consideration the problem we are facing since beginning of our course last year, that is, the new ?style? of lectures offered ? the ?hybrid method? lectures and putting full-timers and part-timers together for common modules ? here we are: lost in a class (rather a seminar) of 150 students... and at the end of the reduced-time length lectures, we had to rush to the lecturers laptop to transfer the lectures to pen drives to be able to revise.

Part-time students should have more attention than full-timers... and we pay for it, but where is the quality education and the support for UoM?s part-timers ? This new strict and ?student-unfriendly? method of cost cutting may be the reason of this high level of re-sits in our class this second semester.

<B>«How to justify exorbitant fees of part-timers?»</B>

We would specially like to emphasize on the previous point ? if we are equally treated as full-time students; why are we paying so much more than them ? If we are equally treated as full-time students; why don?t we have bus fare privileges too? If we are mixed with them in same classes, how to justify the high exorbitant fees of part-timers?

It is high time for UoM to review its priorities and policies ? to what extent will they use cut cost to the expense of education quality and part- timers? Some other methods should be used, and part-timers should stop being penalized!

<B>F.K.</B>