Minister for Education Audimulapu Suresh said the government was in the process of establishing School and Higher Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commissions for controlling what has become a big business and improving the standards. The focus would be on strict implementation of the entire gamut of rules, particularly for bringing down the hefty fees charged by the so-called corporate institutions.
More importantly, efforts were being made to check the commercialisation of education by ‘multiple schools/colleges under single managements’ which have 20 to 200+plus branches each across the State.
Replying to a question posed by YSR Congress Party members P. Rajanna Dora (Salur), Botsa Appala Narasaiah (Gajapathinagaram), B. Appala Naidu (Nellimarla) and T. Bala Raju (Polavaram) on the commercial trends in private and corporate educational institutions and number of seats allotted to poor students in such institutions, in the Assembly on Monday, Mr. Suresh said ‘Sri Chaitanya’, ‘Narayana’, ‘Akshara’, ‘Bhashyam’, ‘Ravindra Bharati’ etc. were ubiquitous.
Similarly, ‘e-Techno’, ‘concept’, ‘Olympiad’ schools and so on mushroomed. The previous government had helped the vested interests in expanding their education businesses by closing down a large number of schools in the name of rationalisation. Another issue on which the government laid emphasis was preventing suicides in residential hostels.
Scientific rating
Mr. Suresh said 25% of seats in private schools were to be given to children from the weaker sections free of cost as per the Right to Education Act, 2009 but it was almost completely ignored. K. Abbaya Chowdary (YSRCP), who represents Denduluru, suggested that the government schools be given rating in a scientific manner on the basis of their performance in order to encourage others to catch up, while his party colleague G. Srinivasa Reddy (Narasaraopet) pointed out that proper treatment would not be given to sick students.
