Ashiq Mahmud In this modern world, everyone is struggling to achieve equality. In this way of struggle, most of the people focus on economic equality. But, is gaining wealth the only purpose of human life? Aren’t we forgetting something important, which is more necessary than wealth? In our daily struggle for wealth, we are not helping the society to reduce inequality, instead we are increasing it. If we see the data from different statistics, it is evident that the economic inequality is so high that, only a few percentage of people owns the majority of the wealth of the world. But, what if we could have focused on education more than wealth? We could have reduced the knowledge inequality among people, and by doing so we might have been able to reduce economic inequality in the society. Instead what we did; we increased the tuition fees for institutional education and created knowledge inequality. It may not be that much evident in the primary education level, but it is serious in the higher education level. That is where the revolutionary idea, ‘Tuition Free Schools’ comes which has created quite an uproar in the society. Although, there are many disputes about the effectivity of this idea to create a society free from knowledge inequality, but in my opinion it is the best idea to ensure knowledge equality in the society. In this article I am going to show how tuition free schools are helping the world becoming a better place by reducing knowledge inequality.
Tuition free schools all over the world are the blessings for the knowledge seekers. There are many schools which are providing high quality education to the students who have thirst for knowledge. Higher tuition fees are always a burden for students, unless they come from a very rich families. In the higher education level, most of the students have to study and work parallely. Otherwise it is very difficult for the students to cope up with the living cost. And, if higher tuition fees get added with this expense, then it becomes very difficult for students to cope up with it. That is why many prospective students have to drop their studies, although they have the capability to do something great with their knowledge. Knowledge is for everyone, and education must be accessible for the students from every status. Every person has the right to acquire knowledge as much as he or she wants. In a society knowledge should be freely accessible to all, and in this perspective the tuition free schools are the best place to be in. It is undeniable that, managing higher education without taking any tuition fees is difficult for the schools. These schools have to get support from the government to maintain their academic and infrastructural costs. But, the way they are helping to create a society free of knowledge inequality is invaluable. There are many countries in Europe who offer tuition free higher education. Countries such as Norway, Germany, Finland, offer tuition free schools for both local and international students. It is true that, in these countries international students face some language barriers, and tuition free higher studies are limited to only in public schools. However, the help they are providing to the international students are truly praiseworthy. The more promising fact is, by following their footsteps, some African countries have started to provide high quality studies by facilitating tuition free system or at least they are considering to make it free. For example, recently South African government has taken an initiative to make their higher studies free. There are some American institutions who are also considering to offer tuition free studies, but they are still in dilemma. Whatever it will be, I think it will surely help the countries to promote mass education effectively. Moreover, by promoting tuition free studies for their citizens, the countries can also be able to enroll the true scholars, while eliminating the economic and social discrimination.
Tuition free schools can reduce the amount of student debt too. There is an article published in an article called ‘Should College Be Free? Pros, Cons, and Alternatives’ published on a website called ‘Trade Schools, Colleges and Universities’ (https://www.trade-schools.net/articles/should-college-be-free),
“As of the 2015-2016 school year, the countries with tuition-free public higher education (at the bachelor’s and master’s degree levels) included Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Norway, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey, and Poland.5 Free college, in Europe especially, has proven to be a popular idea.
One reason why is that countries with free college education tend to have lower levels of student debt among their graduates. For example, in Finland, the average college student loan amounts to $1,200, which is used mostly for living expenses while in school. In Norway, the average student loan is worth $9,381. But that is still less than the U.S. average, which is $15,510.6.”
So, if we analyze the statements mentioned above from that article, it is quite clear that tuition free schools are doing a great job in the society. They are helping to reduce the financial burden from the students and encouraging them to get enrolled into higher education more actively.
Tuition free schools is undoubtedly a great idea to ensure knowledge equality among all social classes of the world. But still, there are some limitations to this system. If a country has to promote tuition free education in higher studies, the government has to be able to provide sufficient financial support to the education institutions, so that they can manage their academic, financial and administrative system. In the developed countries it may be easier to promote tuition free education for all students, but still it takes considerable amount of investment for maintaining such system, which is almost impossible for developing countries. But whatever the limitations are, it is undeniable that the tuition free schools have the potential to reduce knowledge inequality while making the world a fair place for everyone.
