AP bifurcation triggers migration among students

Hyderabad: The decision to split the state at the end of the academic year has left students undecided and confused. The announcement has triggered mass hysteria from students at all levels and parents are equally undecided about the future of their wards.

The worst affected are the intermediate students who are appearing for the common engineering and medicine tests (EAMCET). The studious ones, however, have started packing their baggage to their home as the EAMCET rules say that only those who studied the qualifying SSC exam in the state would be entitled to sit for EAMCET. As the rules for EAMCET are stringent and students do not want to take chances.

Many students from Telangana study in Seemandhra region. An approximate 40,000 students are returning to Telangana, especially the intermediate students in order to retain the state domicile for the EAMCET exam.

As the head offices of most corporate intermediate colleges, including those of Narayana and Sri Chaitanya group of institutions are located in Vijayawada and Guntur, students from the Hyderabad, Nalgonda, Khammam, Karimnagar and Adilabad districts shifted there to avail best training.

The migration of Telangana students has been going on for years reaching a peak in 2005. Before this it was Ravis College in Brodipet Guntur, were thousands of students flocked in summer for EAMCET preparation. With most colleges giving two-year intermediate with training in competitive exams simultaneously parents prefer sending their children to such colleges.

Due to frequent agitations in Telangana, especially Hyderabad, parents preferred sending their wards to Vijaywada and Guntur but slowly it turned the other way in these districts too.

Most universities have a common admission for Andhra and Telangana students as they have a global repute but the admission procedures in Nalsar are different. Twenty seats out of total 70 in LLB and 10 seats out of 50 in LLM are allotted to AP students in Nalsar University. The university argues that the state bifurcation does not bring in change in rules as they are established under AP state universities act.

Andhra University Vice-Chancellor G Suryanarayana Raju said, “The need of the hour is to allocate necessary funds to address the quality gap between state and central varsities.” He added in certain areas of research, Andhra University was ahead of many central and deemed universities in the country. Despite this, the university had been at the receiving end when it came to allocation of funds.

Following the state’s bifurcation, universities in Telangana, particularly Osmania University, JNTU and Nizam’s college, would surely get a better infrastructure and more funding.

“The Andhra region has reputed private universities such as Gitam and Vignan, while Telangana has no such facilities,” said P L Vishweshwar Rao, former dean, Osmania University.

Capitalising on the government’s lopsided education policies, the private sector has monopolised education in a major way. “This has effectively led to the concentration of institutions at the dispensation of private players, affecting access to higher education among students from underprivileged sections and those in rural areas,” said Chukka Ramaiah, an educationist who also runs a coaching centre for Indian Institute of Technology aspirants.

While many students are migrating there are intellects who have a different school of thought.

Dispelling the fear, Srinivas Rao, Dean of a private institution said, “The rules will be changed or relaxed to suit the students. There is a talk that the residence certificate of parents may be considered to ascertain the local status. Students need not worry many solutions such as migration certificate and residence certificate of parents are being discussed and will be considered in the event of bifurcation. conducted as per the High Court directive during current academic year.

According to the present rule a candidate shall be regarded as a local candidate in relation to a local area (Andhra or osmania university) if he or she has studied in an educational institution in such local area for a period of not less than four consecutive academic years ending with the academic year in which the student first appeared in the relevant qualifying examination as the case may be.

When it comes to seats in engineering colleges, 85 per cent of seats are reserved for local candidates and remaining 15 per cent for open merit candidates where local or non-local or reserved or general category students can compete.

With these kinds of guidelines/rules most students are left anguished and confused about their future. Before attending to concerns of electricity and water the government should attend to education as it is a question of the career of lakhs of students echo a group of parents.