(……..Contd.) Former President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam once remarked that dreams are not those which we see while sleeping, but those that do not let us sleep. Dreams become meaningful only when they disturb our conscience and compel us to act.
Perhaps, that is where Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy’s dreams differ from Dr. Kalam’s philosophy.
His dream appears to begin in New Delhi—with his party returning to power at the Centre in 2029, Rahul Gandhi becoming Prime Minister and a GenZ leader shaping India’s educational destiny. The people of Telangana, however, would be far happier if his dream began in Mahabubnagar and ended in the remotest government school in the State.
The problem with politicians is not that they dream too much. It is that they promise too much and deliver too little.
Education in Telangana today presents a strange paradox. On paper, the State offers free education in government schools, free textbooks, free uniforms and nutritious mid-day meals. In reality, parents are running away from government schools and towards private institutions, even at enormous financial cost.
When the poor are willing to borrow money to educate their children in private institutions, governments should stop congratulating themselves over policy documents and begin asking uncomfortable questions.
Why have parents lost confidence in government schools?
Why are private schools mushrooming in every nook and corner of Hyderabad and Telangana?
More importantly, why has education become one of the biggest businesses in the State?
The answer is painfully simple—quality, accountability and regulation.
Today, nursery admissions in Hyderabad can cost upwards of Rs.30,000 annually. Mid-level institutions charge between Rs.50,000 and Rs.1.5 lakh. Premium schools demand between Rs.3.5 lakh and Rs.8 lakh annually. Add transportation charges, books, uniforms, admission fees and activity charges and one suddenly realizes that educating two children is perhaps more expensive than purchasing a small car on monthly instalments.
For middle-class parents, education is no longer an investment. It is becoming a financial punishment.
Ironically, governments speak eloquently about demographic dividends while citizens silently wonder whether they can afford to educate their children.
This educational inequality deserves greater attention than political speeches.
What is even more ironic is that Telangana has one of the largest educational ecosystems in southern India. Thousands of government and private educational institutions operate across Hyderabad and surrounding urban clusters. Private unaided schools constitute nearly sixty per cent of educational institutions in several urban localities.
The numbers are impressive. Outcomes are not.
The State’s literacy rate continues to hover below the national average in several surveys. The rural-urban divide remains glaring. Female literacy continues to warrant urgent interventions. More importantly, backward districts remain educationally backward despite decades of political promises.
Mahabubnagar, the Chief Minister’s native district, presents one such uncomfortable reality.
Should not political leadership begin reforms at home?
There is another question successive governments have conveniently avoided asking themselves. Why should an IAS officer, a Minister, a legislator or a senior bureaucrat hesitate to send his or her children to government schools?
The answer is obvious.
Governments themselves do not trust the institutions they administer.
Years ago, I had advocated a rather radical proposition. Make it mandatory for elected representatives, bureaucrats and government servants to educate their children in government institutions. Revolutionary? Certainly. Impossible? Absolutely not.
The day Ministers begin sending their children to government schools, infrastructure will improve overnight. Teacher vacancies will disappear magically. Budgetary allocations will cease becoming mere announcements and transform into administrative priorities.
Nothing reforms governance better than enlightened self-interest.
The Telangana Education Commission deserves appreciation for attempting to provide a roadmap for reforms. Its recommendations are substantial and deserve serious public debate.
Its proposal to earmark eighteen per cent of the State’s budget for education deserves attention. Converting 2,000 government institutions into integrated schools from Nursery to Class XII can become transformative if implemented sincerely. Introducing English-medium instruction, teacher recruitment drives and restructuring higher education institutions are equally commendable suggestions.
But one recommendation particularly deserves immediate implementation—the Telangana Private Schools and Junior Colleges Fee Regulatory Bill.
The common man has waited long enough.
Fee regulation should neither become an instrument to harass educational institutions nor allow educational entrepreneurship to become commercial exploitation. Governments must strike a careful balance between quality education and affordability.
The objective cannot merely be producing engineers and doctors. The objective must be producing enlightened citizens.
Unfortunately, contemporary politics measures educational success through inaugurations and announcements rather than outcomes. Building magnificent campuses while ignoring foundational literacy levels is akin to constructing beautiful rooftops without strengthening the foundation.
Educational reforms are not measured by newspaper headlines. They are measured by classroom outcomes.
Perhaps, somebody in Telangana’s corridors of power should revisit the National Education Policy’s larger vision. The emphasis is not merely upon access to education but equitable, affordable and quality education.
Three words deserve repetition—equitable, affordable and quality.
Remove any one of them and the entire philosophy collapses.
A Chief Minister is entitled to harbour national ambitions for his party. Nothing prevents Revanth Reddy from aspiring to see his leader Rahul Gandhi as Prime Minister tomorrow. Democracy celebrates ambition.
But before his party seeks to shape India’s educational destiny, let Telangana first become its report card.
Let Mahabubnagar become an educational success story. Let government schools become centres of excellence. Let every vacant teacher’s post be filled. Let fee regulation provide relief to millions of anxious parents. Let literacy rates become matters of celebration rather than statistical explanations.
Then, perhaps, the people across the country themselves will reward his party with power at the Centre—on the strength of Telangana’s report card.
Until then, New Delhi can wait.
Telangana cannot. (Concluded)
