Telangana teachers may challenge Private Universities Act in court

HYDERABAD: Teachers from Osmania University and other state universities in Telangana have decided to take legal recourse and approach the Supreme Court, if required, if the Telangana government does not abrogate the Private Universities Act that came into force last month after passage of a bill by the state Assembly.

This was decided at a round table conference conducted at Osmania University here on Wednesday by Telangana State Federation of University Teachers Associations (TSFUTA).It may be mentioned here that TSFUTA had moved the High Court against the decision of the government to remove the governor as chancellor of state universities but the High Court as well as the Supreme Court ruled that governor must continue as chancellor.

While deputy chief minister (education) Kadiyam Srihari spoke of “setting up world-class universities in the state” and cited it as one of the reasons for establishment of private universities in the state, the state government is destroying the government-run higher educational institutions by not providing enough support to them.  Osmania University Teachers Association (OUTA) president Battu Satyanarayana pointed out that last year the government had released only `72 crore of the `420 crore allocated as development grant for the state universities. This year the allocation itself has been slashed to `210 crore.  

“While OU is facing faculty crunch with 754 teaching positions being vacant and some department running with just one teacher, in other universities the conditions are worse. Satavahana and Palamuru universities are functioning with just 21 permanent teachers, and Mahathma Gandhi University with 36. In Kakatiya University the teacher strength has been reduced from 390 to 150,” he said. S Mallesh, former vice-chairman of Telangana State Council for Higher Education, said the government had no control over private institutions and was already experiencing the burden of unskilled youth being produced by private institutions.

Director ready for meaningful talks

Institute director S Chinnam Reddy has refuted the students’ allegations and said that if students had issues with the new exam format they should raise their concerns with him but not vitiate the academic atmosphere by staging protests. Reddy said, “The problem is that students are scared that many of them will lose five marks allotted for attendance. But I am not here to fail students.”