Dasoju Sravan demands rollback of decision abolishing Intermediate system

Hyderabad: BRS MLC Dasoju Sravan demanded an immediate halt to the November 11 decision to abolish the Intermediate system, a White Paper on the proposed changes and a debate in both Houses of the Legislature. He also sought disclosure of educational institutions in which members of the Chief Minister’s family allegedly have interests and the appointment of an independent expert committee to examine the issue.

In an open letter to Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Friday, Sravan questioned the decision to restructure the education system through a review meeting without a Cabinet decision, legislation or public debate. He said the future of nearly 10 lakh students and 1,750 junior colleges could not be decided by a handful of officials.

He said the move would benefit corporate education groups such as Narayana and Sri Chaitanya, while putting standalone junior colleges at risk of closure. Students could be forced to pursue education from Class I to XII on corporate campuses, he cautioned.

Citing Telangana’s performance in competitive examinations, the BRS MLC warned that the proposed changes could affect students’ opportunities to secure IIT and NIT seats. He pointed out that Telangana accounted for 9.6 per cent of JEE Advanced qualifiers despite having just three per cent of the country’s population and had topped the JEE Main 100 percentile list for three consecutive years.

He said none of the three assurances given on May 10 had been implemented and questioned the government’s failure to place the Education Commission report before the Assembly. Junior college admissions had risen 14 per cent to 85,453, indicating that the system was expanding rather than collapsing, he said.

Pointing to an education budget allocation of 8.23 per cent against the promised 15 per cent, Sravan cited vacancies in government colleges, 19,017 teacher posts, fee reimbursement arrears of Rs 8,591 crore and inadequate university funding. He termed the Chief Minister’s decision legally questionable, arguing that the 1971 Intermediate Education Act could not be abolished through an administrative order and that the Legislature alone had the authority to decide the system’s future.

He also questioned the Congress’s double standards, pointing out that the party had called the National Education Policy (NEP) a bulldozer in Delhi and opposed it in neighbouring Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, but was pushing to implement it in Telangana.