Amaravati: Assuring that no injustice will be done to the contract lecturers, Minister for Education Adimulapu Suresh said that a good number of grant-in-aid educational institutions have come forward to give up their grant-in-aid status by handing over the staff and a few institutions have agreed to give their assets along with staff.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, the minister stated that the government’s intention is to provide quality education to the students without laying any burden on their families. Although the welfare schemes like Amma Vodi, Vidya Deevena, Vasati Deevena are being provided even to those studying in grant-in-aid institutions, the enrollment was not increased and failed to deliver the results.

In regard to this, the government had set up a committee to study the situation and had given its report to the government. Based on the report, to address the issue Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has given three options to those institutions either to voluntarily withdraw from grant-in-aid benefits or hand over the assets to the government or run them as private institutions. With this, out of the 133-degree colleges, 125 managements, almost 93 per cent have come forward to hand over their grant-in-aid status and assign staff to the government. Additionally, 5-7 institutions have voluntarily agreed to give their assets to the government along with staff.

Similarly, out of 122 junior colleges, 103 colleges have come forward to hand over their grant-in-aid status and five institutions have voluntarily agreed to give their assets to the government along with staff. As far as grant-in-aid schools are concerned, 1276 schools have agreed to give up their status and 100 schools have agreed to give the assets and staff to the government. The minister said that if anyone can't run their institution, the department will run it as a government school and assured that no school will be shut.

Further, he stated that the problems of contract lecturers were ignored by the previous government, but the current government will take steps to provide job security to contract lecturers and thus constituted a committee to study the possibilities. Contract lecturers need not have to worry about their jobs, as the government is committed to strengthening the government institutions, unlike the previous government.