Hyderabad: BJP apprises Governor Tamilisai of raw deal to higher education in Telangana

Hyderabad: The State BJP has urged the intervention of Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan to ensure corrective measures by the State government to streamline higher education in the State.

A delegation led by senior BJP leader and Madhya Pradesh in-charge P Muralidhar Rao, BJP National OBC Morcha, president Dr K Laxman, the BJP floor leader in the TS Legislative Council and State wing vice-president, Manohar Reddy, met the Governor and submitted a representation.

The delegation complained that the higher education in Telangana was not only in bad shape but was also deteriorating day-by-day due to the negligence of the State government. The BJP leaders pointed out to the Chancellor of the State Universities the undue delay in appointment of Vice-Chancellors. They said that Osmania, Kakatiya, JNTU, Mahatma Gandhi and Telangana universities and the open university had been functioning without regular VCs from 2014 to 2016.

And, the Jawaharlal Nehru Fine Arts University (JNFAU) had got a regular VC only after three years and three months. That apart, the Sathavahana University does not have a VC since the expiry of the tenure of earlier VC on August 11,2015.

Further, currently, except two State universities, all others are being run by IAS officials as in-charge VCs for the past 18 months.The university registrars are not getting appointments from these IAS in-charges to signeven important files. And, the in-charge VCs find no time to visit the university campuses.

Besides, many of the university registrars are bypassing the well-established academic procedures and institutions and taking decisions to please the pressure groups, resulting in further deterioration of academic standards.

"In the absence of Vice-Chancellors and a weak State Council of Higher Education and a reluctant Principal Secretary of Higher Education, the Commissioner of Higher Education has become an extra-constitutional authority and calling shots including revision of syllabus. If the situation continues for some more time, the damage to the University system would become irreparable," they pointed out.

The State government took five years to reconstitute university executive councils, filling the ECs with the ruling party student leaders with no proven eminence in any field of his/her specialization has made the EC meetings a ritual and the government ex-officio nominees dominating the proceedings with scant regard for academics.

The BJP leaders in their memorandum have also explained how the huge vacancies of teaching and non-teaching staff in the universities, degree and junior colleges have been taking a toll on the entire academic activity of the higher education in Telangana. They further alleged that the State government has been guided by "unprofessional, extraneous and political considerations while sanctioning to private universities."

For example, agriculture science courses are given without any approval from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. And, how the new universities without required teaching staff and infrastructure have started offering Ph. D courses.

The BJP leaders alleged that the State Council of Higher Education has become a corrupt body and only conducting entrance examinations. Lack of infrastructure and student support facilities, problems faced in the fee reimbursement are the other issues in which the delegation sought the intervention of the Governor.