State govt's efforts to bring global standards in education takes a beating?

Hyderabad: The State government has been trying hard to improve the standards in the educational institution to that of the global standards. But, if the goings on are any indication, it is turning into a mess right under its nose.

Firstly, a private technical higher educational institution has yet to get approval from the State government under the Telangana State Private. Universities (Establishment and Regulation) Act, 2018 has allegedly commenced calling for admissions. As of the first week of August this year, the institution in question reportedly did not get clearance from the University Grants Commission (UGC) to start a university.

An earlier application of the institution has been rejected as it could not fulfil the minimum land criteria under the Act. to establish a private university in the HMDA area. Following this, Telangana School's Technical College's Employees

Association (TSTCEA) has lodged a complaint with the UGC and state education authorities concerned.

The second is the inspections of the State-run Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (JNTU-H) giving a shocker to everyone. The university has about 200 technical, management and pharmacy colleges functioning under its affiliation. The university has to conduct physical inspections before issuing an affiliation certificate to the institutions.

However, it could not conduct through scrutiny of the colleges for two years on account of the COVID pandemic. This year, the university authorities have notified the Fact Finding Committee (FFC) inspections. But, the catch is the university authorities wanted to complete the physical inspections of all the 200 colleges within a four-day schedule. That is now being questioned.

Early on, an inspection team visiting each college has to scrutinize a host of components of data as well as the physical infrastructure used to take at least one or two days. Now, the target given to each inspection committee is to complete scrutiny of two to three colleges in a day. That apart, the Telangana State Admissions and Fee Regulatory Committee (TSAFRC) has postponed its scrutiny's of the colleges for hiking fees when a similar practice of it comes under questioning.

However, now the JNTUH has doubled the fees of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in its departments and constituent colleges. Also, it joined the institutions of running self-finance postgraduate courses with a minimum one lakh rupees fee bracket.

Speaking to The Hans India, a senior official of the State Higher Education Department pointed out that the current situation in both the public and private higher education in Telangana is, "The fees continue to grow. But, there is no corresponding growth in the number of scholarships offered to the students. Including the merit-cum-means scholarships." This makes higher education a burden for many, not only students from poorer sections but also those from the middle class. Adding to all these, another proposal in the pipeline from Osmania University to allow its affiliated private colleges to take admissions for PhD courses has now come under criticism by the students' unions.