Hyderabad: Emphasising the importance of sound sleep for students, the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TS BIE) is set to make eight hours of sleep mandatory for otherwise sleep-deprived students of corporate and private residential junior colleges.
Further, laying emphasis on holistic development, recreational activities, including sports and games for students in the corporate residential junior colleges, are also made mandatory.
An eight-member committee, constituted by the board for formulating guidelines on the academic and other issues of the corporate junior colleges following the death of a student, N Sathwik in Sri Chaitanya Junior College, Narsingi, has come up with these guidelines, which will be notified by end of this month.
Students studying at corporate colleges are sleep-deprived due to extended study hours in the evening besides waking up as early as 5 am so as to catch up on the next day’s routine.
According to sources, the committee has recommended holding classes between 9 am and 5 pm with study hours for one or two hours after dinner. After the class work, recreational activities are compulsory for the residential colleges in the evening.
“The provision for the study hour has been allotted after dinner. Eight hours of sleep for students has been incorporated in the guidelines, which are being fine-tuned further. Provision of holding Yoga and meditation has been left to college managements but recreational activities are a must,” sources said.
Further, the board will also shortly issue guidelines for moderating the advertisement content of the corporate junior colleges. The new guidelines mandate the colleges to take approval for the advertisement content from the board.
The move comes in the wake of allegations of corporate junior colleges giving out misleading advertisements over the top ranks by students in the Joint Entrance Examination and National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) UG to lure gullible parents and students into their respective colleges.
The board, henceforth, will verify the claims of the corporate colleges that claim the same rank, verifying the hall ticket number of students during the content moderation and decide accordingly.