VIJAYAWADA: On the second day of the Andhra Pradesh School Education Regulation and Monitoring Commission’s (APSERMC’s) inspection on 130 private schools and junior colleges each across the 13 districts, officials found out some startling facts about poor facilities for students at some of the institutions. The inspections concluded on Friday.
“Junior college hostels in several districts were kept in extremely poor condition. The students actually cried when our inspectors were interacting with them,” said APSERMC secretary Aluru Sambasiva Reddy. One other common complaint the officials received was that professors did not allow the students to take breaks for drinking water during lectures and study hours.
“Students in one of the colleges in Anantapur complained that the teachers do not permit them to drink water in between classes, stating that they waste time...” he said.
This apart, many hostels and the colleges the APSERMC teams visited lacked provisions for clean drinking water, tap water and nutritious food. “Looking at the rooms there, we felt that they were left uncleaned for several months. Even the students said the cleaning staff were not punctual and many a times skipped cleaning of their rooms,” said one of the inspectors on the condition of anonymity.
Several hostels that have more than four floors did not have lifts making it mandatory for the students to climb stairs with their heavy bags, the inspector added. “A number of students, especially girls, are suffering from anaemia due to the poor conditions. Absence of good food, added with less sleeping hours, are responsible for the poor health of the students,” he observed.
Not just poor infrastructure, but students of some colleges were also burdened with ‘heavy and undisclosed fee amount’. Both schools and colleges were found to be charging exorbitant fees. “Several students complained that their colleges asked them to pay a certain amount claiming it to be the final payment, but after the courses began, they charged more for some facilities charges of which were already included in the amount taken during admissions,” the APSERMC secretary added.
Other observations of the inspectors were that some schools had the worst classroom-student ratio and burdened the youngsters with studies in the name of training for medical and IIT exams. The officials stated that the managements had no answer to their queries, with some of them also blaming the students for not maintaining the hostel rooms.
Panel to serve notices
The APSERMC teams visited 10 colleges and 10 schools in each district during the two-day inspections. The commission will now compile the information collected from all schools and colleges, post which notices will be served on them