Vijayawada, Sep 25 (Representative) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Chandrababu Naidu, on Tuesday declared that all the state universities will be strengthened and all vacant posts to be filled soon, besides academic standards, will be improved. Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday held a review meeting at the State Secretariat on Higher Education, during which he expressed serious concern that due to the inefficient policies of the previous government and neglect of higher education, the entire academic sector has gone off track. Stressing the need to bring the academic sector back on track and achieve positive results, the Chief Minister directed the officials to take up small-term and long-term time programmes besides focussing on strengthening the public universities. “At the same time, national and international-level private universities too should be encouraged, following which job opportunities will go up in the academic sector,” Chandrababu said.
He told the officials to immediately take measures to resolve all legal tangles in filling up the backlog posts and issue notification. The State has 48 public and private universities, while 2061 colleges are functioning under their jurisdiction, in which 19.29 lakh students are pursuing various courses. The Chief Minister felt that the standard of public universities has fallen deeply due to various reasons. Thus, the officials should work out plans to correct the mistakes so that the public universities can achieve national and international ranks. The Chief Minister also mentioned that a specialists committee be formed that can visit national and international universities to study the ongoing standards and recommend the change of courses and curriculum as per the changing trends. Depending on their report, the curriculum can be changed next academic year itself, he said. University convocations should be organised on a massive scale through which the students should get inspiration, the Chief Minister said.
When the officials informed the Chief Minister that the existing gross enrolment ratio is 36 percent and the target is set at 60 percent by 2029, Chandrababu suggested that the students certificates be interlinked with Aadhar and should be added to the digital locker before November. Also, the Chief Minister told the officials to examine the matter of issuing a joint degree certificate to the students by interlinking with foreign universities. Chandrababu gave his consent for the proposal to bring in a single legislation replacing all the eight existing laws and also suggested that noted industrialists can be appointed as chairpersons of the Board of Governance, which now exists in IITs and IIMs. The Chief Minister is of a firm opinion that if the teaching posts are vacant, quality education can not be imparted, and thus told the officials to immediately issue notification to fill these posts. Chandrababu Naidu also decided to establish an artificial intelligence (AI) university on a public-private partnership (PPP) basis and told the officials to see to it that the proposed sports village in Amaravati should be with global standards.