Private varsities will deprive poor of education : Tammineni Veerabhadram

Hyderabad: The State general secretary of CPM, Tammineni Veerabhadram, termed that the State government's decision to establish private universities as unconstitutional, and would lead to commercialisation of the education sector.

Inaugurating a day-long hunger strike organised by the Students Federation of India (SFI) State unit here on Thursday, Tammineni said that the private universities would only start courses that have demand in the market to make money.

Further, non-implementation of reservations and fee reimbursement would deprive educational opportunities to the poor, he added.

He said that the TRS government had promised free education to all from KG to PG and how it was going to implement it by handing over the higher education to the private sector? he asked.

He demanded the State government to take back the private universities act and take up the appointment of vice-chancellors and filling of teaching and non-teaching staff in the State varsities.

He said that the Centre was also trying to privatise education in the name of New Education Policy. SFI State president R L Murthy and secretary T Nagaraju said that students in Telangana have fought for the separate statehood turning the State university campuses into battle camps, but the State government was conspiring to shut down the same campuses.

He warned to launch a state-wide agitation against setting up of private universities in Telangana. Representatives from Telangana Rythu Sangam, KPVS, Girijana Sangham, DYFI, PNM, PDSU, AIDSO, OU Unemployed JAC and other organisations took part in the day-long hunger strike programme.