Tough rules yielding positive results: Kadiyam

Hyderabad: Deputy Chief Minister Kadiyam Srihari has underlined that strict rules imposed to regulate private educational institutions in Telangana State have started yielding positive results.

Punjab Technical Education Minister Charanjeet Singh, who is leading a delegation to the State, made a courtesy call on Kadiam Srihari at the Secretariat on Thursday. He said that the purpose of the delegation’s visit was to study the regulation of private institutions by the Government of Telangana. In Punjab, there were eight universities in the public sector and 23 in the private sector.

The latter enjoyed autonomous status and the reservation rule was not applicable to them. However, the government was extending scholarships to students, he said. The Minister told the delegation that biometric system of recording attendance had been introduced, under which engineering students should have at least 75 per cent attendance to be able to sit for the examination.

Besides, BE students could be promoted to the second year only if they cleared 50 per cent of the subjects in the first year. Online admissions were in vogue, with seats being given to those who got good ranks in the common examination and admissions were linked to Aadhaar card to avoid bogus registration of students.

A fee regulation committee visits various colleges and fixes the tuition fee for each college, depending on amenities provided and educational standards. The colleges are awarded grades and the tuition fee would be in line with the grades. As part of efforts to streamline engineering colleges, the State government had taken stern measures.

Hence, the number of admissions had come down to 97,000 from 2.5 lakh. The number of colleges too had come down to 212 from 412. On the whole, only serious candidates were enrolling in BE programmes, it was pointed out. The measures initiated by the TS government to improve the quality of education were yielding positive results. The control on private institutions was foolproof, the Minister said.

Additional principal secretaries G Vajralingam, SK Sandhu, secretary Vikas Pratap formed part of the Punjab delegation. Telangana Higher Education Council Chairman Papireddy, education principal secretary Ranjeev R Acharya, Osmania University vice-chancellor Rama- chandram, JNTU vice-chancellor Gopal Reddy, Ambedkar Open University VC Venugopal Reddy, Vice Chairman of the Telangana State Council of Higher Education (TSCHE) R. Limbadri and OSD to Osmania University Venkataramana were among those who took part in the meeting. Later, Charanjeet Singh was honoured with a shawl and a memento.