Hyderabad: Anguished at their experienced lecturers being removed from service abruptly, the students of Telangana Social Welfare Residential School and College in Gowlidoddi staged a day-long dharna in front of their institution. They demanded that the state government reinstate the part-time subject associates and guest faculty who have been preparing them for IIT and NEET.
Two days ago, the state government removed around 6,500 part-time subject associates, guest faculty, part-time teachers and data entry operators who have been working in social welfare educational institutions.
The residential school and college at Gowlidoddi is an institution designated as the centre of excellence where students have been given free coaching by highly experienced private subject matter experts.
The protesting students had more than one reason to worry about their future, as the private faculty with experience of 30 years were suddenly removed. On the other hand, those teaching as secondary grade teachers and trained graduate teachers in high schools, were promoted and allocated to Gowlidoddi junior college.
“We have cleared two streams of exams to get selected for IIT and NEET coaching here. In January we have to appear for the IIT mains, and we have to complete second year syllabus and revise the two-year syllabus. But the newly allocated teachers don’t even know what is IIT,” exclaimed a second year student of the college.
The students see the state government’s move as an experiment being performed on SCs, which will affect their career prospects.
“Why did they only select social welfare institutions for this experiment and not ST, BC or minority welfare institutions,” a student questioned.
Pointing out that even during the lockdown 15 students got IIT seats, and 35 students succeeded the next year, the students claimed that around 40 students cracked IIT last year.
“Even in corporate institutions like Narayana and Sri Chaitanya, among 2,000 to 3,000 students who prepare for IIT only 40 students get selected. But in our institution, of the 100 who appear, 40 are able to crack it,” another student pointed out.
The senior students also complained that the situation of first year students was even worse, as they still didn’t have subject lecturers to teach them important subjects, even three years after the commencement of academic year. The students also complained that there was no full-time principal in the college for the last couple of months.
“Our faculty used to teach us for two hours, and then they used to teach the junior students because they didn’t have faculty. This not only deprived the students of clearing their doubts with the faculty after classes, but also overburdened the limited faculty,” another student said.
One of the protesting students said that one Ramana sir who had experience of teaching across the country for the past 30 years, wanted to teach in their college till his last breath, but was asked to leave two days ago.
Demanding the reinstatement of their subject lecturers immediately, the students opined that the institution could deliver the results only through their service and expertise.
