Telangana Govt gears up to crack whip on errant colleges

• Directs the universities to conduct inspections
• TSCHE to hold survey on the requirement of new degree colleges

Hyderabad: The Telangana government has decided to crack the whip on the errant private degree colleges in the State. In this regard, it directed the State-run universities to act tough on the colleges by conducting inspections.

Accordingly, the Osmania University authorities have convened a meeting with the principals of degree colleges regarding the affiliations. During the meeting, the colleges were told to pull up their socks else they would lose affiliation of the university.

Presently, there are more than 1,200 degree colleges in the State and nearly 700 alone are affiliated to the Osmania University. In the wake of University Grants Commission (UGC) asking to limit the number of affiliated colleges to 200, the authorities at the OU want to curtail the number of colleges under its ambit, sources said. A large number of colleges mushroomed due to fee reimbursement, and now the government wants to reduce the number of colleges and the financial burden, sources added.

As a result, OU is planning to start inspection of the colleges for the facilities to grant affiliation before the start of the academic year. The colleges which fail to get affiliation would be barred from admissions.

Meanwhile, the Telangana State Council of Higher Education (TSCHE) would do a survey on the requirement of new degree colleges in the State. According to a senior official of TSCHE, in the undivided Andhra Pradesh, the permissions were given very liberally which had created a huge gap. “There are some places which have colleges more than the requirement and there some places with inadequate number of colleges. The survey will cover all these issues. Based on the survey, the council will take a decision whether a notification for new colleges should be issued or not,” said the official.