VIJAYAWADA: The State government on Wednesday launched a web portal on which schools and colleges will have to upload details regarding their infrastructure and other facilities.
Students’ parents may visit the institutes, and complain if the facilities provided don’t match the information provided.
Complaints will reach the AP School Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission (APSERMC) and the AP Higher Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission (APHERMC), and immediate action will be taken, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy said at the brainstorming session of ‘Our Governance, Your Suggestion’, adding that these panels have already asked schools and colleges to provide information on their facilities.
The APSERMC and APHERMC, headed by retired Judges Justice R Kantha Rao and Justice V Eswaraiah respectively, are tasked with ensuring quality and seeing that private institutes do not charge exorbitant fees. Jagan said that earlier, students used to commit suicide because colleges harassed them with high fees, but now, the government is adopting a humanitarian approach.
The APSERMC inspected 170 schools in February and served notices on 62 of them. Similarly, the APHERMC inspected 130 junior colleges and initiated action against 40 of them for various violations.
The APSERMC has asked the managements of private un-aided schools and junior colleges to submit the relevant data in prescribed schedules at apsermc.ap.gov.in so it can determine the fee structure of the schools and colleges.
In a related development, the government issued instructions to private junior colleges to open additional sections as it was found that some of them were being run from apartments, restricting free movement of students. A recent Government Order (GO) issued by the School Education Department said some private junior colleges are being run in urban apartments without sufficient infrastructure, in violation of the Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) norms. “Most private un-aided junior colleges do not have a hygienic environment,” the GO read.