Hyderabad, September 20: People have always been apprehensive of the quality of education dished out by corporate colleges. Now, a group of public representatives, part of a Subordinate Legislature Committee, discovered the reality ‘officially’ during a visit to a corporate college and a government college in the City.
In the busy market area of Dilsukhnagar, a corporate college is housed in a five-storied building with neither a fire escape nor a lift nor even a proper toilet! The committee members and MLC KR Amos said the student and teacher ratio was beyond the permissible limit as 80 students were being crammed into a single room to be taught by a single lecturer. There was no playground nor a proper lab. To top it all, the college management admitted in a rather matter of fact manner that they run the college for 12 hours from 8 am to 8 pm. What more, despite the gruelling schedule, the students there do not have practicals in first year.
“It was shocking to see the college management admit that they are running the college despite violating so many norms. We are planning to request the State government to stop funding corporate colleges under the fee reimbursement scheme. We will urge the government to support government junior colleges by providing adequate funding or at least, extending the fee reimbursement to them to encourage students to join them,” Amos told Express.
Not surprisingly, the government junior college in Saroornagar had ample facilities but had a mere 250 students.
It has a sprawling campus complete with a playground and a lab. Interestingly, these students scored a realistic 30-40 marks out of 60 in practicals despite having all the facilities but students of the corporate college secured cent per cent. “All that the government colleges need is sufficient funding for maintenance and creating awareness among the public about the facilities they have,” observed academician and MLC Chukka Ramaiah.
Ironically, many corporate colleges opposed the move of the Board of Intermediate Education (BIE), which proposed introduction of jumbling system in practical examinations, about a year ago. The reason the corporate colleges cited was lack of facilities in government junior colleges and poor maintenance of labs in colleges in rural areas even in the private sector.
But going by the facts discovered by the Subordinate Legislature Committee, the situation seems different. When it comes to facilities, the corporates are no match to the government.
–Agencies