Government junior colleges, numbering 474, in the State are hit by poor infrastructure and severe crunch of teaching faculty and as a result, the admission rate is very low compared to corporate / private colleges. Justice Eswaraiah Committee will soon give its report on strengthening the Intermediate education.
The number of employees recruited in the past decade has come down and in most of the districts no full-time appointment of Regional Inspecting Officers or District Vocational Education Officers have been made and Anantapur district is a reflection of the situation. While Atmakur Government Junior College Principal discharges duties as the RIO also, Kalyandurg College Principal takes care of the DVEO responsibilities too.
Coaching
There are 45 general junior colleges and two exclusive vocational junior colleges in the district, but out of the 664 teaching staff sanctioned, only 159 are regular lecturers and the remaining 518 are either on contract basis (412) or guest faculty (106). For the 45 colleges, only 22 have regular principals and the rest are in-charges.
There is hardly any physical activity in these colleges, despite many of them having playgrounds. Only five colleges have physical directors. Libraries are a dream for them and only 18 librarians are on rolls. Out of the 352 non-teaching staff sanctioned, only 115 are regular employees and the rest are vacant.
Entrance exam
Meanwhile, the State government is seriously contemplating removing the entrance examination coaching aspect from the Intermediate colleges and looking at modalities on curbing this practice of completing Intermediate course within the first three months and devoting the rest of the time on coaching for IIT, NEET, EAMCET or other entrance examinations, In-charge Regional Inspecting Officer Venkataramana Naik and DVEO Rajaram have told The Hindu.
Board of Intermediate Education has not permitted private colleges to conduct entrance examination coaching and the government is eagerly waiting for the panel’s report to proceed further on the issue and BIE Commissioner V. Ramakrishna will hold a meeting with all RIOs in Amaravati during this week. Reducing the stress on Intermediate students is another reform to be brought so that they do not resort to any extreme step.
Also the government will take a decision on which authority to be made responsible for permitting coaching classes as Intermediate Board Act does not permit the BIE.
The enrolment of female students in all categories of junior colleges has increased in Anantapur district in 2019-20 academic year with 18,297 joining against 17,920 last year and the number of boys has come down from 17,664 to 16,912 this year.
In government junior colleges alone, 11,372 in the first year and 8,499 in the second year are currently studying. In the vocational courses 8,457 students (4,196 female) enrolled themselves this year against 7,323 (3,588 female) last year.
Out of 45 government colleges, only 36 are in own buildings and only 32 of them have drinking water facility and 28 do not have a compound wall.
In most of the colleges students sit on the ground and 2,450 desks are immediately needed.
