Students in lurch as no concrete efforts made by corporate jr colleges

Hyderabad: Here is how lakhs of students studying in corporate junior colleges are left in the lurch. Despite several incidents of students attempting to resort to extreme measures and end their lives, there is no concrete policy decision by the State Education department.

Speaking to The Hans India, a senior official of the department pointed out that, according to current norms, the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) can regulate only functioning of corporate junior colleges, like any other such institution in the private sector. However, many corporate colleges and schools have been running hostels attached to them. There are no norms regulating what goes on in the hostels or how students are pushed beyond their physical and mental capabilities, forcing them to achieve unreasonable goals in national-level examinations to get admissions into IITs and higher medical institutions.

The constant grilling, day in and day out, with long study hours and countless tests to evaluate their performance cause stress and a loss of self-worth among their peers when they fail to deliver expected results. They are humiliated by faculty and others.

A senior faculty member working in a prominent private junior college in Madhapur said, "the colleges run both the Intermediate course as well as their real business by combining it with IIT/JEE/CA/ICSI coaching in hostels." This combination is what allows them to sell it as a package and collect hefty fee from parents.' Considering this the TSBIE had issued certain norms regulating hostels attached to corporate junior colleges. But, in vain; it had ended in a legal battle between the TSBIE and the corporate junior colleges.

Thus, as of now, the TSBIE has only regulatory jurisdiction over what happens in corporate junior colleges affiliated to it for imparting Intermediate education. But, "the catch is that it is the same student from the same college. The TSBIE could promulgate norms for guarding his physical and mental health (to the extent that something happened on the college premises). But the moment he is in the hostel, he is left in the lurch. Only norms and diktats the colleges send govern them," said the faculty member.