Telangana’s higher education plans on right track

Telangana lays equal emphasis on conventional UG, technical courses by setting up GDCs, polytechnics

Hyderabad: Access to higher education, particularly the conventional undergraduate and technical education, has received an impetus with the State government establishing 22 Government Degree Colleges (GDCs) and 20 Government Polytechnics since 2014.

While a total of 22 new GDCs have come up in the last 10 years, 15 have been sanctioned and commenced operations since 2021. The present academic year alone saw sanctioning of six GDCs with the latest being at Dichpally and Balkonda in the Nizamabad district.

---

The addition of new GDCs took the total to 144, ensuring students from backward and rural areas have access to equal and quality educational opportunities without having to move to Hyderabad for their higher education. “The government is taking measures to have at least one Government Degree College in every Assembly constituency in the State,” officials said.

Of the total GDCs, 15 autonomous colleges and 93 have been accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) grade with SR&BGNR Government Arts and Science College, Khammam, securing NAAC ‘A’ grade scoring 3.64 CGPA. This is the highest grade secured by a college in the government sector. Seven more GDCs are in the pipeline for the fresh NAAC grade.

In order to meet the market needs and improve employability of the graduates, the Commissionerate of Collegiate Education, which manages the GDCs, has redesigned and reorganised courses resulting in 61 per cent jump in admissions in the last five years.

The government also laid equal emphasis on imparting technical education to students particularly from the rural areas. A quick scan of the data shows that 20 Government Polytechnics including four women’s polytechnics and one for ST boys have been sanctioned and established by the government since 2014.

While 15 colleges already have commenced academics, five institutions — Government Polytechnic at Shadnagar, Sathupally, Amangal, Musheerabad and Patancheru — will begin classwork from the academic year 2024-25 taking the total of polytechnics to 61.

Four new JNTU-Hyderabad constituent colleges one each at Wanaparthy, Rajanna-Sircilla, Mahabubabad and Palair have also been sanctioned. Apart from starting colleges, new courses including AI & ML, Cyber security, Data Science, Cloud Computing, and IoT aligned with industry demands have been introduced, enabling thousands of students to opt for these courses at both diploma and BE/BTech levels.