The state of Telangana, besides being known as a pharma, IT, pearls and biryani hub, is also known as an educational hub. Educational institutions in both private and public sectors in the state have carved a niche for themselves. Hyderabad City is, perhaps, the only Indian city with the maximum number of educational, academic and research institutions. Hyderabad not only has a Visa Balaji Temple but an area (Ameerpet) known as the IT training corridor. This cramped neighbourhood of Hyderabad is known as the ‘cramming-college capital’. Five hundred-odd training institutes cater to over 100,000 students looking to improve their IT skills. From basic courses in MS Office to Python, and from SAP to Hadoop, there is virtually no IT course that is not available at Ameerpet.
Among the other sectors that the corona pandemic has adversely impacted is the education sector in the state, which has taken a beating just like everywhere in the country. Students, especially from the rural regions, poor and lower middle class families suffered the most. Though schools in the private sector and state government initiatives like the T-SAT in Telangana offered online classes, a majority of students were not in a position to attend digital classes due to the non-availability of gadgets they needed to attend these.
Schools allowed to reopen
There was some sigh of relief with the Telangana high court permitting the re-opening of the schools, both public and private. But the high court issued stay orders over the physical reopening (starting of offline classes) of government residential schools. With the high court’s interim orders, scholars such as these and at other residential schools and educational institutions are the worst sufferers.
The KCR government had launched residential schools, junior colleges and degree colleges for SC, ST, BC, minorities and women in a big way, to help students from these communities to get corporate-level education free of cost, including hostel facilities. Residential educational institutions in united Andhra Pradesh state began during PV Narasimha Rao’s tenure as the education minister and have vastly contributed to society. These residential educational institutions helped lakhs of students to become doctors, engineers, IAS and IPS officers and helped the marginalised and economically backward communities. Understanding the importance of these institutions, CM K Chandrasekhar Rao had launched these institutions in a big way to bring them on a par with private corporate colleges.
Completely unprepared
Despite all these measures, where the state government has failed is in its total lack of preparedness to face the situation. The state government, which has all the adequate funds to release for its pet programmes, schemes and to attract voters in the bypolls, failed to equip students from the poor and lower middle classes with the basic gadgets they needed to attend classes online.
The state government has released Rs 10 lakh per Dalit family in the Huzurabad assembly segment, which is scheduled to have a bypoll and extended the scheme to another four mandals (Blocks) in four SC reserved assembly segments, has no funds to instal TV sets in government educational institutions and provide smartphones or similar gadgets for poor students.
No choice
With the Telangana High Court making offline classes voluntary, students from the poor and lower middle classes are not in a position to decide whether to go to school or not. Going to school may put them at the risk of facing the third wave of Covid, while staying home means no access to online classes. Several academicians, educationists and NGOs have requested the state government to evolve a strategy to help students from the poor and marginalised sections to continue their academic year. But so far, the education department has no solution to offer.
The partial reopening of the schools in the state became possible due to a PIL filed in the high court. It is high time that a pro-active CM like KCR came out with a strategy to help students from the vulnerable sections of society. However, the state government-owned and sponsored T-SAT has done a lot of work to ensure that students from the poor and marginalised sections are able to attend classes digitally. There are 27.23 lakh students studying in 28,600 government schools in the state. The T-SAT is offering online classes for students in three languages, English, Telugu and Urdu. There are also online classes for the hearing impaired.
Tailpiece: In the recent past, decency seems to have lost its way in political debates. Like their counterparts in Andhra Pradesh, leaders from the ruling and opposition parties sans the Left, have indulged in the filthiest language possible, hurling the choicest of abuses at each other. The videos of these politicians using the foulest words in the Telugu language have become viral on social media and are providing free entertainment to viewers.
Both the CMs and supremos of their parties, KCR and YS Jagan are silent and not doing anything to control their supporters and party leaders. But these leaders are happy with the kind of attention they are getting from the people who know not that decency is the norm and that virtues like, integrity, honesty, compassion, kindness, and trust will thrive. But who is bothered about these virtues?
The writer is a senior journalist based in Hyderabad
