Hyderabad: The Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) has served showcause notices on 146 private junior colleges and hostels. Sixty of which are located in Hyderabad and the rest in the district of Medchal. These institutions were found to be in violation of the norms of the board when surprise inspections were conducted by BIE officials last week.
Most junior colleges were to be found conducting classes from 6 am to 10 pm, even though the BIE-mandated timings are 9 am to 4 pm. They were also found not to be providing basic facilities such as sufficient washrooms and good standards of hygiene and sanitation.
Dr A. Ashok, the secretary of the BIE, said, “It was found that students were left with no time for themselves and were feeling like they were under pressure.”C.H. Prabhakar, the Intermediate Education Officer of Medchal district, said that show-cause notices had been served on colleges and they had been asked to rectify their functioning within a month or risk having their recognition cancelled.
The officials conducting inspections also found that students were being segregated on the basis of their marks. Some colleges conducted exams every Monday and refused to allow parents to meet their children who lived in the hostels on Sunday.
Dr Ashok said that the BIE would set up a committee consisting of members of the Board, the Special Chief Secretary of Education, parents, and members of NGOs, to oversee the implementation of the grading system. The committee wou-ld also consider imposing a ban on advertisements by private educational institutions during the season of admissions.
He said that parents should wait for the board to release its list of recognised junior colleges instead of admitting their children to unrecognised institutions. “We will release the list by March 31, three months ahead of admissions,” he said.
Dr Ashok said that the BIE was launching a call centre with a toll-free number to receive complaints from parents and students. He also said that the police were conducting an inquiry into the alleged sexual harassment of a teacher from Narayana Junior College. “We will take action against the management based on the investigation report,” he said.
