Telangana retains polytechnics under Education department after month-long protests

Hyderabad: Bowing to sustained protests by students and faculty members for more than a month, the Telangana Congress government has finally issued an order retaining government polytechnics under the administrative control of the Education department.

Earlier, they were moved from the Education department to Young India Skills University (YISU), which was established as the public-private partnership under the Shakti department (formerly the Labour department).

In an order on Friday, Chief Secretary Sanjay Jaju said both YISU and government polytechnics would function under the administrative control of the Higher Education Department.

The Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and Advanced Technology Centres (ATCs) would operate under the Shakti department, while their curriculum would be regulated by YISU.

He directed the YISU to take necessary steps to obtain requisite approvals from the AICTE and other competent authorities for expanding its academic programmes.

The State government’s decision follows recommendations from a high-level committee headed by K Keshava Rao, who held a series of meetings with the Telangana Polytechnic Joint Action Committee representatives and students who had been protesting for about 35 days.

Earlier, polytechnics, along with ITIs and ATCs, were merged with YISU, triggering a series of protests by teachers and students. Teachers had said that their pay scales, cadres and promotion levels of staff of polytechnics, ITIs and ATCs were entirely different, with AICTE pay scales also being applicable to them.

Students had raised concerns that the merger would reduce them to the status of labourers. They also raised concerns over their future, fearing that they would not be able to pursue undergraduate engineering education through lateral entry via ECET due to the integration with YISU. Further, there was fear among students that the university could exorbitantly increase tuition fees as it was established under the YISU framework.