Prince of Songkla University students have vowed to go on hunger strike against tuition fee hikes of up to 250 per cent that will come into effect next semester.

The university recently announced the new tuition fee rates for all faculties in its five campuses - Hat Yai, Pattani, Trang, Surat Thani and Phuket.

The hikes range between 20 and 252 per cent. The top 13 increases are in the field of social science.

The fee for a bachelor degree in communication arts topped the increases at 252 per cent - up from Bt31,750 to Bt112,000.

A group of student activists at the university's Pattani Campus launched the protest campaign with banners against the "unreasonable" fee hike.

Tadapong Sampaosri, a Faculty of Humanities student who leads the protest, said the university's executives had failed to explain the reasons behind the hike.

"We want to know why they want to aggravate the plight of southern people like us with this hike," he said. "Incomes of locals are now every low due to the unsolved problems of the unrest. How can parents find money to pay such high fees for their children?"

Tadapong said he did not oppose the idea of a fee hike, but it should be reasonable and in accordance with inflation.

"It's such a cruel hike," he said.

The group has gathered over 1,000 signatures of students so far who oppose the fee rise.

Tadapong plans to travel to Bangkok to petition to the education minister. "If necessary, we might go on hunger strike like Bangkok students who are striking against the plan to make universities autonomous."

Wutthipong Chansrinuan, a leading student activist at the university's Hat Yai Campus, said students learned about the increase just two weeks ago.

"They were so wise to announce the hike during the semester's final examination … we couldn't hold a protest during this period," he said, adding protesting would start as soon as the exam period had finished.

The tuition fee for his Faculty of Management Sciences course will be increased from about Bt32,000 per course to Bt104,000.

The stable rate of tuition fees for about the last seven to eight years was one of the main reasons given by university executives for the sudden hike. "We have more and more students each year, but the budget received from the state has increased only slightly. It's not enough to preserve educational standards of the university," said Sompong Thongpong, vice president of the Pattani campus.

Sompong said the university also had plans to promote information technology, so more money was needed for IT equipment.

Chatrarat Kaewmorakot

The nation