Hyderabad: In what could be seen as the major initiative by the Telangana State, the government will provide free education and free textbooks to students who enroll in government junior colleges in the State. This will be implemented from the current academic year.  

Speaking to newspersons at Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education, Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Kadiyam Srihari announced that the government would not charge a single rupee from the students who are studying in government junior colleges.

About 1.15 lakh students are enrolled in 402 government junior colleges under Telugu, English and Urdu mediums. During the admissions, these colleges were charging a fee of Rs 890 for science course and for Arts e it was Rs 553. However, the government has been reimbursing the amount to the students. This was causing a burden of Rs 9 crore to the Board.

The minister said, “Poor students are not in a situation to pay the fee. Hence we waived it off. The government would re-fund fee to the students who have paid for the current academic year.  The Education Minister hoped that with fee waiver would help in attracting about 15,000 to 20,000 students more to government junior colleges.

For admissions, students can fill up the applications and provide essentials like transfer certificate, memorandum of marks, caste certificate and nativity certificate.  The Board will also provide free textbooks to the students in  government junior colleges. “One set of science textbooks cost Rs 750 and Arts Rs 600.

There will be burden of Rs 6.5 crore to Rs 7 crore on the Board. The students will receive textbooks through concerned principals based on their identity cards by July 31,” he informed. Kadiyam stated that to increase Intermediate education standards, junior lecturers and principals of colleges would be trained.

When asked why there wasn’t fee regulation for the private junior colleges which charge huge sums, the Education Minister said “Let me   set my house in order. Why will students go to private colleges when government colleges do well?”