LUMS students protest online classes, 'unfair' fees – VIDEO

LAHORE – A number of students of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) on Saturday staged a demonstration to protest online classes, which they see as a way for the university to extort fees from students.

Over 200 students gathered in front of the varsity, located in Lahore's Defence Housing Authority (DHA), demanding to open the campus. They chanted slogans against the management for charging "unfair fees", holding the banners that state: 'Open the Limits'; 'Online Classes Unknown'; and 'University Online, Mental Health Offline'.

"We are paying 0.7 million for one semester just for the Zoom classes," one of the BS programme students told Daily Pakistan.

The current education system is counterproductive because students fail to fully understand their online class lectures. The LUMS management should open the campuses and libraries so that the students can take regular classes, they demanded.

لمز کے طلباء بھی سڑکوں پر آگئے مگر کیوں؟ تفصیلات جانئے https://t.co/bnNNhNbf6c pic.twitter.com/BF4ZealIpH

— Daily Pakistan (@DailyPakistan) October 24, 2020

According to the students, there are no class meetings and the quality of taking classes is also "not up to the mark".

On September 15, 2020, millions of children in Pakistan returned to learning in schools and universities after a six-month-long closure due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government had closed more than 300,000 educational institutions in mid-March as part of a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease.   

Authorities have since gradually lifted all curbs on businesses across Pakistan and opened public places, including gyms, tourist destinations, and restaurants, but schools remained closed.