Private colleges reel under COVID blues

Government Junior College (GJC) in Falaknuma, which rarely crosses 500 admissions, has seen a whopping 2,083 admissions this year, indicating an increasing faith in government system and also the impact of COVID on the income of families.

This trend is not just confined to Falaknuma college but all other GJCs in the city and State. GJC Bahadurpura with 1,253 admissions followed by GJC Mahabubnagar (1,205) and Nampally college (1,203) have shown an upward trend in admissions.

Other colleges with enormous increase in numbers include GJC Tandoor (1,139), Govt City College (1,072), GJC Nalgonda (985), GJC Girls Falaknuma (965), GJC Chanchalguda (965) and GJC Kukatpally (876). Multiple factors seem to have influenced parents to join their wards but the most telling reason seem to be the declining incomes due to COVID.

Venugopal, who runs a small sweet shop and admitted his daughter in Nampally college, agreed that he made the decision due to the falling income. “Either I had to choose between a corporate college or a government college and I chose the latter as I cannot afford the corporate fee structure,” he said.

Many like him, who would have earlier preferred neighbourhood private junior colleges, have opted for government colleges since education is free and books are also provided free of cost. “The middle level small time private colleges have lost out as they were unable to offer online education like the corporate colleges or the government colleges,” said principal of a GJC.

Lot of parents feel there is no point in paying the fee for online classes when their wards are unable to attend physical classes in colleges. So there is hardly any difference between a government college or a private college where they had to pay fee. Small time colleges charge anywhere between ₹8,000 to ₹15,000 per annum while corporate colleges charge more than a lakh.

The demand has also spiralled because of the increased pass percentage in SSC, as all students were declared pass in the absence of examinations due to corona.

Government Junior Lecturers Association (GJLA) president P. Madhusudhan Reddy agrees that the spurt in admissions was also due to increased confidence in the government sector. He says when Telangana was formed in 2014 admissions in government colleges was around 52,000. With no fee and free books it has increased to 87,000 last year. However, this year so far 1,05,600 admissions have been made so far – an increase of nearly 20,000 additional admissions. Interestingly, in the combined State GJCs saw a decrease of 10% admissions year on year.

In Hyderabad itself, this year, 12,000 students were enrolled in the GJCs of which 6,800 were in the Commerce stream. State has 405 GJCs with an intake strength of 1.44 lakh seats. Education Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy said that the government has already distributed free textbooks to 3 lakh Inter students on ₹9 crore.

Private colleges set up by individuals and small groups seem to be the worst sufferers forcing students to opt for GJCs.

The number of private colleges has declined to 1,700 now from 2,520 in 2014. And of these, this year only 1,550 applied for affiliation from the TSBIE indicating the disastrous effect on them. An official said that 162 colleges are closed this year and a major factor is the non-release of fee reimbursement funds by the government.