Towards Strengthening Education

The Telangana government is chalking out plans to strengthen the intermediate education in government junior colleges in the state to provide the students with quality education.

The measures to be taken up by the government are intended to upgrade the education standards in government colleges and to restore the faith of people in the government educational institutions.

After scrapping fees to the students and deciding to supply text books freely, the government turned its attention towards improving the learning levels of students.

State government has recently announced that students enrolling into government junior colleges need not pay any fee and could have free education. Free distribution of books would be carried out from July 31 this year.

There are around 402 government junior colleges spread in all the districts of state in which the current strength of students is 1.30 lakhs. Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister KadiyamSrihari said that his government wanted to ensure quality of education in all the government run institutions.

He said, “It has been observed that many students, especially from rural areas, are dropping out from studies after SSC due to their inability to pay even the admission fee in government junior colleges and government wanted them to bring back to colleges.”

State government would bear Rs 9 crores towards examination and admission fee and Rs 6 crores for free distribution of text books from this academic year. As part of strengthening the government colleges in terms of education, infrastructure and best teaching facilities would be provided. The government has announced to construct pukka buildings for all the existing government colleges besides establishing new colleges.

As part of this plan the colleges would be provided with laboratories, libraries and other facilities by next academic year.

On the other hand, the education ministry is contemplating to provide EAMCET coaching for the students during the summer vacation from next academic year. The ministry started negotiating with lecturers associations to provide the coaching to prepare the students to compete with students of private institutions.

At the same time the government has also decided to provide training to the lecturers working in all the government junior colleges to improve the teaching standards.

Upgrades in junior colleges

- Construction of pukka buildings for all government colleges by next academic year

- Providing laboratories, libraries and other facilities

- Free education to the students

- Providing EAMCET coaching to the students

- Training the faculty of all the junior colleges

Tussle Continues ....

A tussle between managements of private schools and State government over the use of government textbooks for pre-primary classes has created confusion among parents. Though the academic year started in the first week of June, private school managements are finding it difficult to handle the situation following pressure from the State government. The private schools already distributed textbooks among students that have been published by private publishers and are not in a position to convince parents on the use of government textbooks. The private school managements have been arguing that they were only informed about the mandatory use of government textbooks in mid May. “When the mandate reached private schools, they already placed orders with private publishers in February, 2015,” Telangana Recognised School Managements Association general secretary Kadari Anantha Reddy said.

On the other hand,the State government was insisting on use of books prescribed and published by it. Reddy said that the private school managements were not against the State government’s move, they just need one-year exemption. Taking the issue forward, the State Education Department authorities conducted surprise checks and seized private textbooks. The State government’s move is being seen as usurping the rights of private schools given to them by virtue of GO 1 under which private institutions can use their own text books. Anantha Reddy said that private schools were anyhow using the government provided textbooks for upper primary classes (VI to X standards) but seeking relaxation of one year for pre-primary textbooks.

The private school managements get their own books published by different publishers in accordance with the syllabus provided by the State Council for Research and Training (SCERT). The curriculum and topics would be in the elaborative forms unlike the government textbooks. Moreover, the printing of textbooks is carried out by the publishers certified by SCERT. There are nearly 20,000 private schools across the Telangana. Whereas, Government Textbook Press director B Sudhakar said that about five publishers were given a contract for printing of government prescribed syllabus. They published about 1.15 crore books to be sold to private parties. He informed that all the publishers have already paid the royalty amount of Rs 3 crore to the government and they are now selling the books.

Notwithstanding to the controversy between private school managements and the State government, some parents associations have filed a writ petition in High Court seeking exemption from usage of government textbooks for one year. If the private schools stick to their stance, publishers who have published the government books would have to incur a loss. Similarly, if government imposes its order, all the private school managements have to buy books once again and ultimately it would affect parents and students.

Ramzan Triggers Hotel Offers

Hotels and restaurants in the city are coming up with new ideas and innovative themes to attract the food lover during the ensuing month of Ramzan. Mostly the makeshift restaurants are offering evening or night food items to people. Hotels and pavement vendors also ready to make money in this month.

There are several restaurants in the city that have become the iconic Ramzan spots for a long time and several others are striving to get that tag. In this process many such restaurants are coming up with new ideas to attract the customers and and had made convenient arrangements for dispensing food.

“A lot of innovations have been going on in Hyderabad as far as the hotel industry is concerned,” Food Krafters & Service managing director Khaleel Ahmed said. “With lot of competition in the business every restaurant or hotel wants to be noticed and be a favourable spot for the people,” he added.

He said that Hyderabad House group is organising a month-long rendezvous of food at a private marriage hall to cater to the Ramzan crowd. He said, “a food court is planned for Ramzan in a 5 pm to 5 am mode where one can find all the street food available besides specialties of Ramzan like Haleem, Biryani and others.”Special dishes for vegetarians would also be available in the food court, he added.

On the other hand, he said that it would be affordable even to the middle class people. At the same time several others have changed their serving times from day to night time. Management of Nawabi Zayeqa restaurant, one such hotel in the city, said that due to fasting most of the people do not visit hotels during the day time. The hotel has introduced few special dishes for Ramzan which would be served only during this month.

During the month of Ramzan these hotels are providing all the fried items, paya, kaleji besides Haleem. At the same time vegetarian items include dosa, chaat, choley and much such stuff. On the other hand, Pista House restaurants managing director M A Majeed said that Haleem produced by them would now be available at 200 outlets across the city. He said that to reach out to more people easily the online booking was also facilitated through www.pistahouse.in where one can book for 1 to 10 kg of Haleem.

Similarly, BJN Hotels group has introduced Dine Nights especially for the month of Ramzan in which various delicacies would be served. They are serving regular Deccan dishes during the whole month taking it as an opportunity and a challenge.

Age Relaxation for Examination

State government is likely to relax the upper age limit for the recruitment to the vacant government jobs in the wake of its promise made earlier and to do justice to the unemployed who lost time during the agitations for Telangana.

The State Cabinet which is going to meet on Wednesday is likely to take a call on the issue. Though it is widely expected that the age relaxation would be for ten years, sources said that it might be limited to five years.

The student groups also expressed their hope that state government’s positive decision on age relaxation would surely help thousands of youth to get into the state services. The government responded positively on age relaxation after receiving lot of representations from the students unions and groups. The CM had also promised for it during the statehood movement.

The state public service commission has not released any job notification after the year 2012 and several hundred students have crossed the upper age limit required for different examinations.

It is to be reminded here that the state government has already given its nod for issuing job notifications in various government departments.

Though the CM had promised to provide 10 years relaxation to all the youth, the same might not be considered as it may take the recruitment age to about 50 in some cases.

Already the maximum age limit for general category candidates is 34 years and for ST/SC categories it is 39 years. Similarly the age limit for handicapped is more than that. If the age relaxation of 10 years is added to the current maximum age limits then it would go up to 44, 49 for general and SC/ST and more than 50 years for handicapped.

Officials from Telangana Public Service Commission said that without the separate orders for age relaxation, the Commission would be forced to continue the existing system on age limits. They informed that it was likely that the state government may possibly give the relaxation of five or six years for one or two years.

On the other hand student organizations who have also been demanding for the age relaxation, feel that a large number of students have lost their maximum age for the cause of Telangana and they must be given relaxation.

Students Federation of India (SFI) state secretary M Nageshwar said that students have sacrificed their career for the statehood movement and it was the responsibility of the state government to protect their career.

Time to Deliver Promises

After completing one year in office, the TRS government is racing against time to deliver on its promises, especially the announcement of job notifications for various departments.

The state government has given its nod for the release of notification for about 31 different departments, which would be possibly issued by the Telangana Public Service Commission, Police Recruitment Board, Department Selection Board, District Selection Committee and other nodal agencies.

According to sources, the state government may release notifications to over 17,500 jobs in various departments, the largest being the state police department. The police department jobs include recruitment of SI posts, constables, A R constables and others thus taking the count to 10,000 or more jobs. Recruitment for these jobs would be taken up by the TSPSC and police recruitment board.

It is learnt that the chief minister has instructed officials concerned to ready the notifications to fill about 25,000 jobs in various departments.

TSPSC can only carry out the recruitment of SI posts and recruitment of constables would be carried out by the police recruitment board. The Chief Minister’s Office has given instructions to the police department to consolidate the exact number of vacancies in the department.

On the other hand, other departments like school education, energy, agriculture and health have also been given instructions to identify vacancies. Recruitments in the other departments would be carried out by the respective recruiting agencies and the Public Service Commission. About 17 kinds of recruitments do not come under the purview of Public Service Commission.

About 3,000 posts would be filled through the Public Service Commission among which engineering posts make about 1,300 posts. Engineers are needed for departments like irrigation, groundwater department, public health, Panchayat Raj, roads and buildings and others.

Sources in the Public Service Commission have said that the state government has already issued instructions and the board is ready to hold about 127 different examinations.

Similarly in the education sector, the state government is contemplating to issue a DSC notification to fill posts of about 410 school assistants, 661 senior grade teachers, 103 language pandits, and 59 physical instructors among others.

It Was Not Just Heat..!

Mohammed Younus

It was not just the scorching heat but several other reasons  have resulted in more number of deaths across the state during the recent heat wave, worst in forty years.

The major reasons of the large number of deaths are seem to be higher level of vulnerability shown by few people, lack of proper cooling system at home, lack of precautionary measures, no primary healthcare measures, and weaker response of the village authorities to create awareness and several others.

Though the heat wave has slowly faded out and it is time of Monsoon across the state but it has taken so many lives before government takes any initiative.

Most of the deaths reported from Khammam and Nalgonda districts during the 15 days severe heat wave. A 20 year old boy S Venkat Goud from Narayanpur village of the Nalgonda district, about 80 km from Hyderabad, had died due to the sun stroke after suffering for four days.

Deceased Boy 

His uncle Srikanth, a cotton farmer, said that the deceased did not have the habit of roaming around the streets with friends but used to stay at home. The boy suffered an attack and fell unconscious suddenly on May 21 and after struggling for life he died on May 23. One of his relatives informed that the boy was a diabetic by birth and that made him highly vulnerable and died despite he stayed at home.

Similarly, a three months old baby of a small time vendor from the same village Shaikh Mujahid died on May 26 after suffering a stroke on May 23. Mujahid said that when the baby showed suffocation, a local doctor advised him to take her to the Niloufer Children Hospital in Hyderabad. But while returning from Hyderabad the baby died of stroke.

People in Narayanpur and other villages said that local authorities did not make any effort to save the lives of people and no advisories were given to the people.
The Sarpanch of Narayanpur village E Anjamma however, claimed that she has advised the people to take the precautionary measures, the deaths occurred in her village and nearby localities. She said, “Our village is a drought hit area declared by district authorities and people need to go out for agricultural work.” She said that most of the people have also died even they were at home.

Sarpanch Anjamma 

On the other hand the health officials in the village said that they can provide only a preliminary treatment to the patients coming with the difficulties caused by sun stroke.

A resident health supervisor at the government hospital in Narayanpur village P Laxmi said that when the patients come with conscious they provide first aid to them and in case of unconsciousness they would be sent to the bigger government hospital situated about 15 km away from the village.

In another case a 30 year old lady from Injapur village A Yadamma also died due to the sun stroke. Belonging to a farm laborers family, she used to work in the farms. Her brother A Katamaiah informed that she was mentally unsound but used to work in the field with other family members. She also succumbed to heat wave after suffering for four days.