Telangana polytechnic students, staff oppose merger with Young India Skill University

Polytechnic students and staff across Telangana have opposed the proposed merger of polytechnic education with Young India Skill University. Protesters fear the move could affect ECET and BTech opportunities, undermine SBTET’s autonomy and reduce the importance of diploma education.

Hyderabad: The Telangana Congress government’s decision to merge polytechnic education with the Young India Skill University (YISU) under the Skill, Human Capital and Knowledge Training Initiatives (Shakti), formerly the Labour Department, has evoked strong opposition from the student and teaching community, with several students hitting the streets across the State on Tuesday.

Polytechnic students lambasted the State government, stating that it wants to deprive them of pursuing undergraduate engineering education by scrapping the ECET, a lateral entry scheme, through the merger.

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“We want to pursue undergraduate engineering education. Merger of the polytechnics with ITIs and ATCs under the YISU will deprive us of an opportunity to pursue BTech,” said a student from the Government Polytechnic for Women Suryapet.

According to the protesters, the GO 97 on merger of polytechnics with YISU would affect the autonomy of the State Board of Technical Education and Training (SBTET) and turn diploma education into general labour training.

“Three years of our diploma education will go in vain if there is no provision for engineering education. We will be forced to take up intermediate education to pursue engineering education,” she said.

Students who protested in Vikarabad district expressed concern that the move would reduce the importance of diploma education and wanted immediate withdrawal of the order.

Meanwhile, 16 government polytechnics teaching and non-teaching staff associations, which formed into the Telangana Polytechnic Joint Action Committee (TPJAC), opposed the merger. They objected to the proposal and said the SBTET, which is a fully functional and high-performing department, is subsumed under a university that offers no scope for students’ future higher education.