VIJAYAWADA: A day after the Opposition parties raised hue and cry over the alleged lathicharge on students at the SSBN Autonomous College in Anantapur, Education Minister Audimulapu Suresh Tuesday hit back at the Opposition parties for shedding crocodile tears over the issue.
“It was N Chandrababu Naidu, who served as the chief minister for 14 years, who destroyed the education sector by privatising all educational institutions and enacted a legislation in the name of the Private Universities Act,’’ Suresh said at a press briefing in Vijayawada.
He pointed out that Chandrababu Naidu didn’t review functioning of the aided educational institutions and failed to fill vacancies there when he was in power. “While Naidu was the chief minister, the government issued orders on December 17, 1999 not to replace posts in aided educational institutions,’’ Suresh said. It was the YSRC government which set up a committee to study ways to improve the functioning of the aided institutions.
Suresh maintained that the government is not forcing the managements of those institutions to merge their schools with the government. “However, in the guise of student union leaders, a section of goons are trying to create ruckus,’’ he alleged. “CM Jagan made changes to the law made by Naidu, and allowed 35 per cent of the poor to study in corporate colleges with full fee reimbursement.”
Students demand apology for ‘lathicharge’
Tension prevailed for a while at the R&B office in Vijayawada where student union leaders staged a protest while Suresh was addressing the media over the incident at SSNB Degree College, Anantapur. The student union leaders demanded an apology for the ‘lathicharge’ on the students. With the situation going out of the control, the police took student union leaders into preventive custody.