Demand for funds for higher education

Activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) held protest demonstrations at various colleges across the twin cities and in other places across Telangana demanding that the government allocate sufficient funds for higher education and also take up recruitment of teachers that have been frozen since the last six years.

TS secretary Praveen Reddy informed the media on Tuesday that most of the universities are in bad shape both “academically and financially” with the government not taking up appointment of vice chancellors despite the end of the tenures for the last two years. The deep cut in budgetary funds for the last few years meant the universities administrations had funds sufficient to pay the salaries for the vastly dwindled teaching and non-teaching staff. The students wing of the BJP also accused the government of taking “revenge on the students” deliberately in the abject neglect of the education sector as a whole. It is a big setback to the students hailing from the poor and lower middle class especially. Adding to it is the forcible collection of huge sums of mess deposits. With 70% regular faculty missing from the universities due to lack of recruitment, the pathetic situation is complete, he added.