Education Minister Sabita Indra Reddy has asserted that the government did not impose any cuts in the budget for education sector and that providing quality education was one among its top priorities.
The Minister said the department had prepared plans to spend ₹18,600 crore during the current fiscal and allocations were being made accordingly. The Minister was replying to the discussion on the demands for grants of Education Department in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday.
The Education Department had proposed to spend ₹8,209 crore on School Education, ₹1,367 crore on Higher Education and another ₹322,91 crore on Technical Education sectors this fiscal. This was in addition to the funds spent by various departments, including Social Welfare, Tribal Welfare and Minorities Welfare, taking the total allocations to over ₹18,600 crore. The government had set up over 900 residential schools for different sections spending over ₹1 lakh per each student a year and these schools were performing on par with the corporate institutions.
The government was considering regularisation of staff employed on contract basis in some of these institutions while the staff for these sections had been enhanced significantly over the past few years. Efforts were initiated to check the fee being collected by the private educational institutions and the committee constituted to suggest measures gave recommendations in this direction.
Action on these recommendations could not, however, be initiated as some managements took to legal recourse and obtained stay on the matter. The government in the meantime had initiated steps to conduct recruitment of teaching staff for the educational institutions through the Public Service Commission and selection of over 3,200 teachers was made so far.
Replying to queries, she said the government would soon constitute a search committee to appoint vice-chancellors to some universities. On a number of intermediate students ending their life this year, she said a committee had been constituted to study the issue and the government would take appropriate action after the committee comes out with its recommendations.
Sports in schools
Sports and Excise Minister V. Srinivas Goud said that the government would make it mandatory to obtain no objection certificate from the District Sports Officer for setting up of schools at the district level. The step was envisaged to ensure that there was adequate space for organising sports events on the schools’ premises and it would be applicable for private educational institutions too.
The Minister was responding to complaints that the mushrooming schools were devoid of any space to allow students to take part in sports and games despite a period being allocated for them. He said the government was focussed on providing quality education as well as promoting health of students ensuring their participation in sports.
Replying to complaint that private people were managing the Uppal stadium, he said the land on which the stadium was constructed belonged to the government and Steps would be taken to maintain government’s control on the Uppal stadium, the minister assured.
