Sweeping Changes in Teacher Education

 The curriculum of the Education studies in the state is all set to undergo major changes from the next academic year as the duration of the Bachelor of Education (B Ed) course would be raised to two years and other changes would also be introduced. 

These changes have been under consideration for a long time after National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) has formed the guidelines. The council was also contemplating to change the structure of syllabus and inclusions of more topics in the teacher education studies.

Major changes include the enhancement of course duration from one year to two years and alterations in examination pattern. As per the decisions taken by the School Education Department, the examination papers for the Education Studies (B Ed) in the next academic year would be 12 unlike 6 in the pat.

At the same time the duration of internship or Teaching Practice would be for 20 weeks (6 months) instead of 8 weeks (two months). Higher Education Council Chairman T Papi Reddy said that Centre was contemplating these changes for a long time and National Council for Teacher Education has already informed the changes. 

He said that changes were being introduced to strengthen the teacher education. He said that if a teacher has been trained well, he/she can educate the students in a better way. He said that notification for B Ed would be released soon and entrance examination would be conducted in June this year. These changes also come with some other strict norms for students. They would be asked to complete B Ed within three years from the date of admission. Internship or practical teaching session would include interaction with students and with community, skill development and communication development. 

The teacher training period would conclude with the presentation of papers by the candidates. On the other hand the examinations would be conducted semester wise and the number of papers would be 12 for two years.

From a beginner to Selfish

Industry Specific ITIs

With an intention to provide trained people as per the requirements of industry, State government is going ahead with a plan to establish industry-specific Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) across the ten districts of the State.

Efforts are on to change the syllabus to make it suitable to train the students in acquiring skills needed by the industry. The Technical Education wing of the government is contemplating to link them to the industries as well. Government says that such institutes would ensure a rise in the number of employable youngsters from the semi-educated rural youth in the future.

"While announcing the agricultural ITI, Chief Minister has also hinted that several other such institutes would come up in other districts of the State"

The Industrial Training Institutes were established with an intention to train the youngsters in taking up the technical jobs in the industries. However, existing curriculum was not meeting the present day standards of the industry and therefore created a need to relook into it. Government sources said that industry-specific training centres would come up one by one in due course and the process has already begun in this direction. Each centre would train the students in a particular sector. 

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has recently sanctioned an Agricultural ITI for the Yellareddy mandal in Nizamabad district. This ITI would help train the students in agriculture related technology. 
The construction of Yellareddy ITI would begin very soon. While announcing the agricultural ITI, Chief Minister has also hinted that several other such institutes would come up in other districts of the State.

The districts that were identified for industrial specific ITIs are Medak, Karimnagar, Khammam, Adilabad and Mahabubnagar. ITI with Forest as core subject would come up in in Adilabad and Irrigation and Electricity related one would come up in Mahabubnagar.

Mission Kakatiya to Revive and Restore Tanks

Mohammed Younus / Nizamabad : Mission Kakatiya, the historic programme of the Telangana government to revive and restore over 46,000 tanks and other water bodies across the State, kicked off on Thursday amidst a festive atmosphere at Sadasivanagar village in Nizamabad district. Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao formally launched his government’s flagship programme by participating in the removal of silt from a village tank. Accompanied by Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao and other Cabinet colleagues, he unveiled a pylon to mark the occasion.

Launches his flagship programme Mission Kakatiya;
warns against irregularities in implementation of scheme

The Chief Minister blamed it on previous rulers of the united Andhra Pradesh for the destruction of lakes and water bodies in the last six decades, though earlier invaders had spared the lakes. “The kings, who had ruled the region, protected the lakes for abundant produce and we salute the Kings of Reddy and Kakatiya dynasties for their great contribution for keeping alive the chain of tanks that catered to the crops needs,” KCR said and added that the government was committed to bring back that sheen on the faces of farmers. He asked the public representatives to be with the people and officials while carrying out works of Mission Kakatiya and ensure successful completion of the project by taking it up as a challenging task. 

He said, “I urge upon all the public representatives to be with people alongside the Kakatiya Mission works as soon as the budget session ends.” Calling upon farmers to liberally use the de-silted nutrient-rich mud from the tanks and improve their yield, he asked them to ensure that quality of works was not compromised at any level. The Chief Minister called upon the people and public representatives to participate in the Mission Kakatiya project on a similar scale as they did during the Telangana movement. 

He said, “Every one took part in the Telangana movement and we succeeded. We should emerge winners yet again by completing the task of reviving all the tanks in the state.” On maintaining standards and quality of the lake works, KCR said the officials were directed to blacklist the contractors who failed to comply with the norms. He also warned that those who indulge in irregularities in the lakes restoration works would be sent to jails. Online tenders would be called for transparency and those eligible could get the bids to complete the works on time with quality he said. The Chief Minister announced several sops, including Rs 1 crore from CM Relief Fund, besides the funds allotted in Mission Kakatiya. 

KCR also sanctioned 11 sub stations with 33/11 KV capacity, ITI and 100 bed hospital for Tadwai Mandal, Nagireddypet, Malthummeda, Agri Polytechnic College between Medak and Nizamabad, Community and marriage halls for Muslims and Christians. Earlier, he formally inaugurated the tank revival scheme by digging up the abandoned tank at Sadasivanagar along with state ministers T Harish Rao, Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, Yella Reddy legislator E Ravinder Reddy and other party leaders. 

Speaking on the occasion, irrigation minister T Harish Rao said that the accumulated mud in the tanks for long time would be useful for the agricultural lands. He said, “Farmers must make of use the silt and mud taken out of these tanks and abandoned ponds. It will help them improve their productivity. Farmers can decrease the use of pesticides and the yield will up by 30 per cent for each crop during the coming years.” He said that the idea of Mission Kakatiya was a historic moment in the state after a thousand years. 

He said, “Kakatiya rulers were concerned about the people and they dug up several thousand tanks in the state and the TRS government is reviving all these abandoned tanks to give a push to agriculture in the state,” he said. The minister informed that every year 20 per cent of the identified tanks would be revived. “In Nizamabad, around 3,000 tanks and ponds were identified by the government during a survey of which 651 tanks would be preserved in the first phase,” he said.

Ensuring transparency in execution of de-silting works, the minister said that tenders for nearly 2,210 tanks have been allotted out of the 46,447 tanks that would be revived during the first phase. Agriculture minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy said that selection of Sadasivanagar village for the launch of Kakatiya Mission was a wise and relevant step as the area was not supported by any water project or canal and solely depended on ground water or village tanks.

The Chief Minister thanked several people who came up with donations for the Mission Kakatiya project, including Mohan Rao from Karimnagar district for donating Rs 1.5 crore for the project and adopted four lakes in the district.

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.