Amaravati, March 19 The Andhra Pradesh government will encourage private universities, Minister for Education, IT and Electronics Nara Lokesh said on Wednesday.
He introduced the Establishment of Private Universities and Regulation Second Amendment Bill, 2025 in the Assembly which was unanimously passed.
Nara Lokesh informed the members that Centurion University has been brought into the state despite certain issues with regard to technical aspects. He declared that the state government is keen on encouraging private universities.
He told the House that the VVIT has made a request to be recognised as a private university as per the Central and the State regulations. It owns 50 acres of land and 4,75,278 feet build-up area besides having a Centre of Excellence and incubator.
The VVIT also has 11 under-graduate and post-graduate courses along with 700 staff members with a student strength of 9,200. It wants to be converted into the VVITU under the provisions of the 2016 legislation.
Lokesh said that whenever a university comes into being, it is necessary to amend the Act in the legislature and include the name of the university.
Meanwhile, speaking in the Legislative Council during Question Hour, Lokesh said academic standards in schools plunged deeply due to the "imprudent decisions" of the previous YSRCP government.
When compared to the academic standards from 2014 to 2019, during the YSRCP rule, Class 5 students felt it very difficult to read even the Class 2 Telugu books. "The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) has clearly mentioned that while 57 per cent of the students could easily read the books in 2014, the percentage has fallen to 37.5 during the YSRCP rule," the Minister said.
In 2014, almost 80 per cent of the Class 8 students could easily read Class 2 Telugu books in 2014, but this has fallen to 53 per cent by 2024, Lokesh regretted. During the YSRCP government, the total strength of government schools and junior colleges came down by a whopping 12 lakh, he said.
The YSRCP government had forcibly imposed inadvertent decisions and unplanned reforms on parents and teachers, he said and felt that the students opted for private schools as local issues were not taken into consideration while releasing the GO 117. Declaring that 10 to 15 radical reforms are being introduced in the academic sector by the TDP-led NDA government to improve the educational standards, Lokesh made it clear that political interference will be totally avoided in the process of the transfer of teachers.
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