Education Commission Recommends Major Reforms, Overhaul of State's Education System

Hyderabad:The Telangana Education Commission has recommended a sweeping overhaul of the state’s education system with a string of reformative steps. The panel finalised a policy document after wide-ranging consultations that lasted over a year.

The commission favoured performance-based promotions for teachers, abolition of Eapcet, merger of SSC and Intermediate boards, introduction of English as the medium of instruction from Nursery to university level, and conversion of 2,000 existing schools into full-fledged Telangana Public Schools offering education from Nursery to Class XII.

The policy document, titled Education Policy for Telangana 2026: Vision for Inclusive Excellence, was submitted to chief minister A. Revanth Reddy by its chairman Akunuri Murali, along with members like Prof. P.L. Vishweshwar Rao.

The report spans pre-school to university education and includes recommendations on open and distance learning, regulatory reforms and governance changes across the sector.

The commission has recommended English to be the medium from Nursery to university. The three-language formula should begin from Class I with Telugu or Urdu, English and Hindi taught.

Recommended structural changes in schooling include the creation of school districts to monitor schools.

The commission has proposed strict regulation of IIT-JEE and NEET coaching centres and associated hostels. Board examinations should be conducted only in Class XII, and Eapcet should be abolished, it said.

Admissions into engineering, agriculture and pharmacy courses should instead be based on Class XII marks.

The SSC and Intermediate boards should be merged, and the minimum pass percentage raised to 45 per cent to improve the academic standards. For private schools, the commission proposed the setting up of a statutory fee regulatory and monitoring commission.

The commission also stated that there should be no automatic promotions for teachers. Promotions must be based on performance. Teachers’ work should be evaluated once every five years. After assessment, a report should be given to the teacher and two years’ time allowed for improvement. If performance does not improve even after that period, such teachers’ removal from service has been proposed.

The commission, however, clarified that these rules should apply only to future recruits and not to those already in service.

Teacher education itself is proposed to be restructured. The diploma in elementary education has been proposed to be discontinued. The B.Ed course should be split into B,Ed Primary for Nursery to Class V; and B.Ed Secondary for Classes VI to XII.

The 2,000 existing schools, the commission proposed, may be converted into Telangana Public Schools. Each such school must have laboratories, libraries, sports facilities and bus connectivity.

When it comes to higher education, university executive councils should be reconstituted with the vice-chancellor as its chairperson. Appointment of vice-chancellors should take place through a search committee consisting of a retired chief secretary, a UGC nominee and three retired vice-chancellors.

“Self-financing system in universities should be abolished. The Suravaram Pratap Reddy Telugu University should be developed into a multi-disciplinary university,” it has been recommended.

The commission prepared the policy after 14 months of consultations. It visited more than 305 institutions across all 33 districts, conducted 54 meetings and organised 10 seminars. Study visits took place in Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Malaysia, Vietnam and the United States.