Vijayawada: Education minister Adimulapu Suresh has said no government aided educational institution would be closed or trouble caused to the staff and the students.
The minister told the media here on Monday that the state government was initiating reforms to streamline the functioning of aided schools, junior colleges and degree colleges and advised the stakeholders not to get panicked over such developments. The state government would not take any decision that would adversely affect them.
Listing out a series of welfare schemes like the Nadu-Neetu, Jaganna Vidya Kanaka etc, the minister said though the state government was providing crores of rupees as grant-in-aid to aided educational institutions, there was no perceptible change in their functioning. He expressed concern over the declining trend in educational standards in these institutions.
Quoting several government orders, the minister said that as per them, the government had given the options either to withdraw the grant-in-aid or hand over their assets to the state government or run them with their own funds. Accordingly, 1,276 institutions agreed for withdrawal of grant-in-aid out of 137 aided degree colleges, 125 out of 122 aided junior colleges and 103 out of 2,000 aided schools.
The minister said that five to seven degree colleges, five junior colleges and 100 aided schools had also expressed their interest to hand them over to the government along with their assets. Based on their directions, several teaching and non-teaching staff working in these educational institutions had reported to the concerned officials, he said, adding their details were being put on a web portal to provide them postings in a transparent manner.
Several of them sought postings in municipal areas where they were currently working, and justice would be done to the extent possible in this respect.
Maintaining that 700 lecturers in degree colleges and nearly 4,000 lecturers in junior colleges were working on contract basis for nearly 20 years, the minister promised that they would be provided job security. Though a working committee was appointed, there was some delay due to Covid19. He promised that all efforts would be made to expedite the efforts and ensure justice to them.
Earlier, a delegation of leaders from the unions of contract lecturers working in degree and junior colleges met the minister, who in turn assured them that their pending issues would be resolved expeditiously. He advised them to call off their proposed stir.
