‘Govt. decision to stop support to aided colleges will hurt none’

The State government’s decision to stop support to aided colleges will in no way hurt any stakeholder’s interest, said Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE) Chairman Konireddy Hemachandra Reddy at a press conference here on Saturday.

Responding to the criticism that the State government is intending to save money by withdrawing support to the aided colleges, Mr. Hemachandra Reddy said the government would not gain financially, but instead its expenditure will only increase by ₹100 to ₹150 crore per annum as it has to spend on fee reimbursements to the students.

All the aided lecturers, 280 of them Statewide, will be deputed to 17 State universities and payment of their salaries will continue and their services used in some key vacant places in the universities to improve the quality of pedagogy, he said and added that most of the aided colleges were also happy with the government decision.

“The move will put an end to malpractices going on in some of the aided colleges, where the salary paid to the lecturers were partly being swindled by the management,” he said.

He added that colleges can continue to have sections, now running under aid, and the government will reimburse the entire fee of the students (for those eligible).

The government has decided to have 35% of the seats in private universities set up in Andhra Pradesh, where the admissions would be done through State CETs, and also the government has written to the University Grants Commission to allow such quota in the ‘Deemed Universities’ too running in the State, Mr. Hemachandra Reddy said.

Recruitment

There are 2,700 vacancies in the universities and 2,000 of them would be filled in February as per the job calendar issued by the State. In the government degree colleges too, there are 1,600 vacancies and there will not be any problem in accommodating all these lecturers from the aided institutions, the APSCHE chief added.

As part of skilling the students and providing value addition to their courses, the State would set up Skill Universities in each Parliamentary constituency area and make the students employable.

“They will be given scope to do additional minor and major courses to earn 20 credits in addition to the compulsory 160 credits,” he concluded.