Across the country colleges in the Government sector are being washed away in the might of private colleges, but government junior colleges in Telangana are doing just the opposite.
Not only they withstood the onslaught of private players but crossed the 1 lakh admission mark, a big achievement in a State where corporate sector rules the Intermediate education. So far, 1.02 lakh students have taken admission in 404 junior colleges in Telangana and it is an increase of over 10,000 from previous year.
In fact the trend has totally reversed over the last three years. “Till 2014 we witnessed 10% drop in admissions every year. From just 57,000 admissions in that year we crossed 1 lakh this year,” says G. Madhusudhan Reddy, president of Government Junior Lecturers Association (GJLA). In fact, in 2008 the government closed 425 sections in the united Andhra Pradesh and the agitation of junior lecturers was a regular feature against the closure. A big draw for the spurt in enrolments is the complete waiver of tuition fee apart from distribution of free text books. About 80% of students are from weaker sections and the Government decided to waive of ₹ 893 that it used to collect from science students and ₹533 from the humanities group. These students were getting scholarships to that effect. Free text books are an added attraction.
Deputy Chief Minister Kadiyam Srihari, who also holds the education portfolio, said that Telangana is the first State to take such a student-friendly decision and the response has been overwhelming. The burden on tuition fee waiver is around ₹ 9 crore per year and an additional ₹ 6 crore from the free books distribution.
In fact, new buildings are being constructed and the Government is spending around ₹ 387 crore for the infrastructure including new constructions thanks to liberal funding from the RMSA. Out of the 404 colleges only 61 do not have permanent buildings and the effort is to improve the infrastructure in terms of laboratories and furniture. The only hiccup seems to be shortage of lecturers, which the Government wants to overcome through new recruitment. Out of the 6,122 sanctioned teaching strength 975 are on regular rolls while 3,800 work on contract basis.
However, it is likely to improve with the Government planning to recruit 1,200 new lecturers.
On the other hand, private colleges are closing. Last year 90 colleges closed the doors while 25 colleges did the same this year and most of these are in the districts.
For example, two out of the three private colleges in Sadasivapet in undivided Medak district had to close due to lack of patronage.
