The Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) has cancelled the affiliations of 68 inter colleges on Friday in the Telangana state. All these institutes were running without any necessary certification required for affiliation and to maintain safety standards in the buildings.
Of the total, majority of the branches belongs to corporates such as Narayana, Sri Chaitanya and Sri Gayatri educational institutes. Narayana has 26 of it's branches closed, while Sri Chaitanya and Sri Gayatri has 18 and 8 branches closed respectively.
With the rejection of their affiliation, the institutes would lose the power of recognition and are not allowed to continue their academic classes.
Several students studying in these institutes would now be affected with the decision. There were be about 29,800 students in total these institutes. Though final year students have passed out, it's the first year students who have to check out their alternate options.
When contacted, an official of the TSBIE said that the students would be accommodated in the other branches of the same institute or else they can shift to other institutes depending upon their choice.
All the listed institutes were given notice one month ago itself to reply following the Telagana High Court order to the Board. However there was no response from these institutes, the TSBIE has decided to close them down.
If these institutes tries to run classes in these buildings, there would be criminal charges levied on them, said the board official. None of these institutes had either the Fire No- Objection Certificate (NoC) from the fire department or the building permission from the respective municipalities and most of them were running in 15 meters above height buildings.
Earlier a person, D Rajesh, a social worker from Medchal district filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in High Court regarding colleges running without fire safety standards there by putting the students life at risk. After hearing the petetion in the month of February, 2020, the High Court has ordered the TSBIE to take necessary action immediately.
Junior colleges in Telangana are known for their gruelling schedule where institutes force students to study for 16 to 18 hours every day, which takes a toll on their mental health and leads to several student suicides each year. The institutes also witness corporal punishment, rote learning and moral policing.
In 2001, a committee to look into the issue of student suicides was headed by M Neerada Reddy, the then Vice-Chairperson of the Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE). After she submitted the report, she said that the students looked like “people hijacked and put in concentration camps.”
Last year, the junior colleges came under sharp criticism from all quarters after over 20 students killed themselves after the results of the Intermediate exams were announced. At the time, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) was accused of favouring Globarena Technologies Pvt Ltd, a firm that was awarded the contract to do both data processing (admissions, centre allotment, etc) and result processing. Students and parents alleged that the company committed errors, which led to scores of students failing.