On the Cost of Higher Education

 Education experts have asked the Centre to re-examine its proposal to ease the norms for granting funds to the higher learning centres, including universities and deemed universities as it could deteriorate the higher education system further. The Human Resource Development Ministry has recently in its directive said that the 12 (B) status would be eased for granting funds.This status is given to the universities by University Grants Commission (UGC) for granting funds. 

The status is given if the university fulfills certain parameters prescribed by the UGC. The parameters include proper infrastructure, maintenance of student-teacher ratio, qualified faculty, laboratories and others. As a convention, the UGC does not grant funds for research and development activities to those universities that do not fulfill the criteria. Educationists from the State argue that not a single university across the nation including national and State was among the top 100 universities in the world and easing the norms further would surely damage the repute of such institutions.

Vinod Pavarala from University of Hyderabad said that allowing the under facilitated and low infrastructure universities to function would serve no purpose but waste of money. He said that this would go against the decision of the Central government in giving importance to higher education. He asked, “How can the Centre see positive change in higher education by easing the norms?” He said that without streamlining higher education, a nation’s development could not be discussed. 

Goutham Murthy from OU said that it was not sure as to how the proposed one-time comfort would work to boost research in the universities. He opined that enhancing infrastructure and other pre-requisites must be the first priority of the Central government. Universities are rated and assessed only if they possess 12 (B) status issued by the UGC. National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) also conducts the assessments only for the varsities having 12 (B) status.

On the other hand, former UGC chairman R K Agarwal said that research activity in Indian higher learning institutions was very less compared to its other Asian counterparts. He said that he does not see any mistake in easing the 12 (B) status to varsities for research purpose. He said, “The Centre wants to ease it for only once and that is to support the varsities financially in good faith.”

Vacant for long time

Though the state government has announced perks for the state employees, thousands of sanctioned posts are still lying vacant under different categories for a long time. The ambiguous stand of the state government over the filling of state and district level posts has begun worrying thousands of unemployed youth in the state. As per the data available with the government, about 76,000 posts are vacant in the state.

Lack of any progress in the direction of providing employment is worrying many educated youth who have been waiting for good news from the government. Though the government has constituted public service commission for the state and minor changes in the syllabus have also been done, there seems no progress on this issue.

Lack of any progress in the direction of providing employment is worrying many educated youth who have been waiting for good news from the government. Though the government has constituted public service commission for the state and minor changes in the syllabus have also been done, there seems no progress on this issue. Unemployed youth who have been preparing for different examinations are waiting for early notification for jobs. Youth feel that the state government was delaying the process in the name of syllabus change and other things.

K Rajendra Kumar, a post graduate who has been waiting for the government notification said that whatever the state government doing for syllabus change was good but it should release the job notification on priority. He said, “State government has been doing the things with priority which were neither announced in the manifesto nor were the agenda of Telangana movement during several years.” He said that unemployment was the major cause of worry for the people of Telangana and it needed to be addressed with priority.

Apart from the state level and zonal level posts in the state, the bifurcation of employees would also create some more vacancies in various departments. As per the data available in various departments employees from 44 departments have given their options and that also needs completion. Employees of other 110 departments have not yet given their options. On the other hand district level posts are also not filled despite there is hurdle coming in the way of filling these vacancies.

Moreover, the recruitment of teachers has also been the matter of serious concern for thousands of educated youth in the back drop of government contemplating to go for rationalization of teachers across the state. However, the order for rationalization was kept in abeyance after the tough stand of Teacher Unions in the state.

Engineering Colleges Seek Seat Reduction

Several engineering colleges in Telangana are coming forward to reduce the number of seats and courses, following the tough stand taken by Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (JNTU-H) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to improve quality of engineering education. The JNTU-H officials have already disaffiliated about 140 colleges for not meeting prescribed standards and for failing to maintain conditions as per the norms in the current academic year.

Managements of several engineering colleges are apprehensive that the university may not allow them to participate in engineering counselling, this year too. In the beginning of the current academic year, the engineering college managements had to run from pillar to post for being part of engineering counseling process. However, they got the permission to participate in counselling for admissions through the Supreme Court verdict much later. However, these colleges could not fill the seats available with them even in the second phase of counselling. 

Of 95,000 seats available in different courses in such colleges only 35,000 seats were filled. The colleges were disaffiliated earlier this year on the ground that they had fallen short of the prescribed norms as was detected during the inspection of an expert team appointed by the Supreme Court. Till now about 50 engineering colleges have approached the university authorities with a request to reduce the number of seats and courses. JNTU-H officials have confirmed receiving such applications during last three weeks. 

An official in the varsity on condition of anonymity said that college managements were in tremendous pressure and they might lose the opportunity to participate in counselling this time too if they don’t follow the norms. He said that several colleges have approached the university to cut short their number of allotted seats and do away with the less sought after courses. Telangana Engineering and Professional College Managements Association chairman N Gautham Rao said that they wanted to streamline the activity as soon as possible. 

He said, “The major reason for applications for seats reduction application is that seats are being left vacant during counselling. On the other hand JNTU-H is asking for rationalising the facilities in accordance with the number of students.” So far 30 engineering colleges applied for seat reduction and 19 colleges for dropping of certain courses. As a whole, about 25,000 engineering seats would likely be decreased for the academic year 2015-16.

Political Satire

Two Nations

The Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member Sitaram Yechury accused the Narendra Modi-led government of widening the gap between rich and poor, thereby creating ‘Two Indias’ and said that the slogans of the government were different from factual governance. Addressing a public meeting of CPM Telangana unit on Wednesday, he lashed out at the Modi government for burdening people with Rs 30,000 crore fresh taxes and making corporates happy by giving them Rs 8,000-crore worth concessions in the budget.

He termed the present government as an amalgamation of the governments headed by Indira Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He said, “It is a combination of autocratic regime of Indira Gandhi, economically neo-liberal government of Man Mohan Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime under whose rule religious extremism spread its roots.” He accused the Modi government of carrying forward the anti-people policies of previous governments. 

He said that the promise of ‘Ache Din’ was not for common people and the latter were now longing for the “good old days”. He lamented that for the first time in the country, the agriculture sector was in serious danger and farmers were being forced to sell their lands. Calling upon the people to struggle against the anti-people policies of the NDA government, Yechury said that a people’s movement alone would keep the government under check. 

He took serious objection to the disinvestment proposal of the government and said that the Rs 70,000 crore disinvestment plan the government envisaged was aimed at dismantling welfare in education and health. He asked the left forces to come together to regain the past glory of CPM in AP and Telangana and to struggle for people’s cause. 

Commenting on A P Reorganization Act 2014, he said that the Modi government had promised to correct the past government’s mistakes, but nothing has been done on those lines yet. CPM state secretary Tammineni Veerabhadram on this occasion asked the stand of Telangana government on its relationship with Centre. He said that Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao should clear his stand on this issue.

Budget Disappoints Academicians

 Educationists and experts stated on Saturday that the Central budget has disappointed the educational sector by decreasing the funding and questioned how the excellence could be achieved with reduced allocations. 

Noted academician Prof Haragopal said that the budget allocation for education has been decreased to Rs 64, 000 crores compared to Rs 90, 000 crores in the previous. “This budget is disappointing and disturbing to the large extent as far as the education is concerned”, he lamented.

He said that Centre speaks of national development without providing any facilities and allocations for the higher education in the country. He said, “While we say that not a single University from the country is listed among top 100 institutions across the globe and on the other hand we don’t have funds to spend for higher education.”
He asked how the Central government would achieve the goal of excellence in education by decreasing the budget allocations. Haragopal said that if government wants poor to be educated it should have increased the funding for higher education.

With the funds allocated to education this time the very existence of Right to Education (RTE) would be jeopardized. He said that there was a lot of competition from private universities to the public sector universities. Noted educationist Prof Kancha Ilaih said that Centre did not want to invest in the higher education and it did not want to encourage higher education due to its cynical ideology.

He said that while the government claimed taking up several developmental activities for higher education, the budget did not reflect the same. He said that the higher education sector in India would see a decline with this budget. He asked how Make in India and skill development would be possible with such a meager allocation that too, decreased compared to the previous year.

Engineering Colleges May Shut Down

 The State government may order the shutdown of 146 engineering colleges that have been identified by a Supreme Court-appointed experts’ panel has having failed to meet the norms laid down by the AICTE. The colleges in question were recently disaffiliated by the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTUH) in the light of the earlier inspection committee’s report and the expert panel’s findings.
Moreover, JNTUH officials went on to register a criminal case against several engineering colleges for not having even prescribed minimum faculty strength in. 

The disaffiliation of these colleges has not been revoked yet. Going by hints from varsity officials, the participation of engineering colleges in Eamcet counseling this year also appear bleak. These 146 colleges were not given permission to participate in Eamcet 2014 counseling by JNTUH. However, the college managements approached the High Court and also the Supreme Court for affiliation de novo and to participate in the counseling.

The apex court had instructed the JNTU officials last year to form a committee to examine whether these colleges fulfilled AICTE norms. The committee came to a conclusion that most of the colleges were not up to the mark and submitted its report to the JNTUH and the Supreme Court. On the basis of that report, JNTUH officials disaffiliated these colleges. JNTU in-charge vice-chancellor Shailaja Ramaiyer had said that when the inspection was done by experts nominated by JNTUH, the colleges were skeptical and complained of foul play. 

But, the Supreme Court-appointed committee established the shortcomings once again, she added. The officials, however said, “The affiliation of these colleges was cancelled for the current academic year in the light of various inspections. Inspections would be conducted again to check the minimum criteria once again for the next academic year and a suitable decision would be taken.” College managements, however, accused JNTUH of not giving them sufficient time to overcome flaws in infrastructure.

JNTUH registrar N V Ramana Rao said that grievances of the private college managements would be looked into. Several representations of college managements to the education ministry and the State higher education council have not yet yielded any results.