Junior college students left in the lurch

HYDERABAD: The state government has decided to close down as many as 462 sections in various government junior colleges across the state next academic year due to lack of sufficient student strength.That means students who have studied first year of Intermediate at these colleges, should either go to private colleges to continue their studies or simply discontinue education.The Board of Intermediate Education had earlier decided to run arts sections in a college if it has a minimum of 40 students and a science section if the minimum strength is 30 students.As all these 462 sections had below the pr e s c r ibed s tudent strength and are thus unviable, the government has decided to close down the sections.With this decision, about 10,000 students who have been admitted to these colleges will have to look for alternative.Besides, as many as 300 government junior lecturers may face transfers and 1,700 contract lecturers may face sacking.Government Lecturers Association general secretary P Madhusudan Reddy came down heavily on the government for deciding to take the decision on the basis of economic viability.“Will any government see economic viability in running an educational institution?’’ he questioned.“Instead of spending on providing education to the downtrodden as its social objective, the government is regrettably viewing it as profit or loss making proposition,’’ he said and alleged that the decision to close down 462 sections in government junior colleges was intended only to favour private colleges.There are 5,000 private colleges and 800 government junior colleges in the state and the government colleges are deprived of support from the government itself.On the other hand, the government invited applications to set up more private colleges this year.As the government had earlier decided to stop providing Eamcet coaching at government junior colleges, many of the students moved towards private colleges.Only those unable to pay the tuition fee at private colleges are sticking to government colleges which is the reason for the poor number of admissions in these sections. Reddy accused the state government of conspiring to privatise Intermediate education to lessen its burden.