The Manonmaniam Sundaranar University in Tamil Nadu had earlier announced on Friday that it would waive tuition fee of all its transgender students from this academic year.
Now, the university wants to waive the fee for the children of traditional folk artists as well from the next academic year, reports The Hindu.
They will waive the fees once these children join the courses offered by the university and its ten constituent colleges from the next academic year, the publication said.
Not only will the transgender students be offered fee waiver, but they will also have seats reserved for them in every course in the 83 affiliated colleges, Vice-Chancellor Dr K. Baskar said while addressing the university’s 46th Standing Committee on Academic Affairs (SCAA) meet on Friday.
This will help 830 transgender students get a free education.
The state government identified 100 forms of traditional Tamil folk arts as being traditional arts. Hence, Dr Baskar said told The Hindu that the university would offer free tuition to the children of these artists also from the next academic year.
There is also debate about whether the internal and external marks should be printed separately in the mark statement, as is being done currently. They say it is affecting the students as employers give weight only for external marks and ignore the internal ones. This issue is yet to be discussed in their meetings.