Rama Krishna Sangem
“Thanks to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s visionary guidance, the higher education in Telangana is the best in India,” said Prof R Limbadri, Chairman, Telangana State Council of Higher Education. In an article for Excel India on the occasion of Education Day on June 20, Tuesday, as part of Telangana formation Decennial celebrations.
Prof Limbadri said, that important initiatives have been implemented successfully in the Higher Education. The State of Telangana is achieving excellence in Higher Education under the esteemed guidance of CM KCR. The young est state is competing with the world nations in education and industry.
There are numerous educational institutions of national and international repute, particularly in Hyderabad. In fact, Telangana is the hub for technical and non-technical education. A paradigm shift has been noticed in higher education, from ‘national education’ to ‘global education’, from ‘one time education to ‘lifelong education for all’, from ‘teacher- centric’ to ‘learner-centric education’.
Besides, the Government is committed to achieve total literacy. Significant efforts are made to strengthen infrastructure, encourage research and innovation, and introduce technology in teaching and learning. The State is strong in many aspects.
The State has got a very rich and learned education heritage and human resource. Cost of education is very low compared to the other states and caters to quality. Makes curriculum more realistic, technically skilled and job oriented Telangana State is performing with perfection and quality in all the sectors in general, and education sector in particular. GER in Telangana is higher at 39.1 compared to 27.3 of GER of India.
Ahead of national average in GRE
The GER of women in Telangana is 40.3% compared to 27.9% of India and the GER of SC women in Telangana is 39.3% compared to 23.9% of India. Telangana is ranked 2 nd in the country in terms of Number of Higher Education institutions per one lakh of population. Women enrolment is also rapidly increasing in Higher Education (i.e., UG and PG Courses) in the State. Especially, the number of Dalit women students has significantly increased.
The implementation of Kalyan-Laxmi and fee reimbursement scheme has helped women to pursue higher education. Hyderabad has emerged as a Centre for research and Higher Education in the Country and students are becoming more professional in their careers.
Telangana is of 31 varsities
The Total Universities in the State of Telangana are now 31 in number The State could achieve above milestones is because of the vision, passion and policies of CM KCR. His direction, leadership and his initiatives for enhancing the standards of education in the State has been helpful to be successful in many endeavours.
The Government has established many colleges to make education more accessible to the students coming from weaker sections/SC/ST/BC and minorities. 30- SC, 22-ST and 16 BC Residential Degree Colleges, 05 Government Degree College and 02 Engineering Colleges, JNTU, 02 Law Colleges are established in various districts of the State.
The Government has established a Women’s University by upgrading the existing Women’s College, Koti, Hyderabad and FCRI (Forest College and Research Institute) which is in the process of upgrading to Forest University.
DOST, a pioneer in the country
Degree Online Services of Telangana, DOST, a pioneer in the country, started in the Academic Year, 2016-17, made the admissions transparent by maintaining merit and roster. It gave access to rural merit students by bringing all universities under one umbrella. Curriculum revisions are planned every year to suit the employability opportunities in the state and in the country as well.
Other reforms like Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) and bucket system have been introduced from the Academic Year 2019-20 in all the undergraduate courses.
The Cluster College System, executed among the higher education institutions, facilitates the exchange of faculty members among the degree colleges. Being multidisciplinary in approach, allows students to opt for courses in which they are interested within the cluster. By clustering the colleges, the institutions can pool and share their resources like the library, infrastructure, best practices, and other human resources.
Certain Multi-disciplinary and inter disciplinary courses are made available through bucket system making the choices of subjects more flexible. Student academic verification system (SAVS) is introduced to curb the menace of fake certificates and to help the job providers and admission providers for fast verification of genuineness of certificates.
Many new courses that are in demand are introduced. Some courses are even on par with engineering programmes. For example: BA Honours 4 years (Political science and Economics), Bachelor degree in Designing (B. Des), B.A. Public Policy and Governance, BA Arts International Relations, B.A.(Content & Creativity); B.Com – Business Analytics; B.Sc. Data Science, B.SC Bio- Informatics, B.Sc. Physical Science, B.Sc., Computer Science 4 years (Honours), BBA (Retailing), BBA (E.Com Operations), BBA (Logistics), and French as Second Language at UG level.
Establishment of Competitive Examinations Couching Centres in the Universities of Telangana state to help the students to excel in various Competitive Examinations.
TSCHE has signed MoUs with National and International bodies for developing the employability skills updating the curriculum on par with National and International demands. In this connection, TSCHE has signed many MoUs with British Council, TCS, CCE and Vice-Chancellor, Osmania University, CCE & ISB , Government of Telangana and Centre for Research in Schemes and Policies (CRISP)
“Thus, all the Universities are gearing up to the quality, equity and accessibility which is the main objective of the Hon’ble Chief Minister, Sri K. Chandrasekhar Rao garu in developing Bangaru Telangana,” signed off Prof Limbadri.
Nicely written report on Telangana Education Day