HYDERABAD: The Telangana Board of Intermediate Education (TGBIE) has claimed a sizeable surge in student enrolment in government junior colleges this academic year. However, lecturers are voicing their suspicion that an uncomfortably large number of these enrolments are “bogus”.
According to the TGBIE, as many as 94,155 students enrolled in 430 colleges across the state, an increase of over 10,000 from last year’s 83,844. Members of the Government Junior College Lecturers’ Association, however, have raised red flags, claiming that nearly 30,000 of these enrolments are nothing more than a mirage. They say the inflated enrolment figures are due to whispers of college closures, insisting that there is pressure on institutions to exaggerate numbers.
This has meant that names of students are being added to rosters without their actual attendance. Take, for instance, the Government Junior College in Huzurabad, where 240 students are officially enrolled, yet only 160 have submitted their transfer certificates. In Kacheguda, out of 524 admissions, 72 students are unaccounted for, having neither submitted certificates nor ever set foot in the classroom.
Likewise, 42 of the 607 admissions in Government Junior College, Nalgonda, were suspected to be bogus; in the Government Junior College, Malkajgiri, out of 577, only 350 students were found to be attending classes. Lecturers TNIE spoke to, on condition of anonymity, estimated that the true enrolment across the state hovers around 60,000.
Amidst these claims and counter-claims, over 100 colleges have reported enrolments below 100. This is being attributed to inadequate infrastructure and the fact that the intermediate education system requires 12,000 additional junior lecturers.
Madhusudhan Reddy, president of the Government Junior Colleges Lecturers’ Association, gave insight into where the discrepancy in figures might have originated. “During enrolment, fearing closures, lecturers collected student memos from nearby schools, inflating numbers with names of those who may never set foot in the classroom.
Some students enrol just to secure a certificate while pursuing education elsewhere,” he stated. “It’s time for the TGBIE to take decisive action. If they can scrutinise private colleges, why not the government ones?” he questioned.
Admissions 1,000, but only one student in class
A revelation by Shiva, a first-year student at Government Junior College, Suraram, appears to support Madhusudhan Reddy’s statement. Shiva said: “I was told there were around 1,000 admissions, but when I started attending, I was the only student in my class.”
Attempts by TNIE to obtain a response from TGBIE Secretary Krishna Aditya and senior officials were met with silence. Now the question lingers: how many of these enrolments are real, and what does this mean for the future of education in Telangana?