Telangana Education Commission recommends abolishing Class 10 boards, EAPCET

Hyderabad: The Education Commission on Thursday, February 26, submitted its report to Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, recommending major reforms, from government teachers’ promotions to the abolishment of Class 10 boards and EAPCET.

The commission proposed that existing automatic promotions to government teachers should be replaced with the performance based promotions.

Additionally, the performance of teachers should be assessed every 5 years, and based on that, a report should be made, and the teacher should be given 2 years to improve performance.

If a teacher fails to improve, they should be removed from service. However, the recommendation should not be applied to those already in service but only to those appointed from now on, the commission suggested.

Reorganisation of B Ed

The commission called for abolishing Diploma in Elementary Education (D EI ED) and reorganizing B Ed into B Ed (Primary) for Nursery to Class V and B Ed (Secondary) for Class VI to Class XII.

They suggested that the National Council for Teacher Education must be consulted for this.

Additionally, B Ed students should be given at least 150 days of teaching experience in schools, they said.

Board exams, EAPCET

The commission said that Board exams should only be conducted in Class 12 and even called for abolishing the Engineering Agricultural and Pharmacy Common Entrance Test (EAPCET), saying admissions to those courses should be made based on Class 12 marks.

Minimum pass percentage should be increased to 45 percent to improve educational standards, they said.

Other suggestions included making English the medium of instruction from Nursery to University and introducing a three-language system (Telugu/Urdu, English, Hindi) from Class I onwards.

They also called for amending laws to regulate IIT-JEE/NEET coaching centres and hostels, stating that there was a need to exercise control over fees, infrastructure, faculty, curriculum, students’ mental health and misleading advertisements.

On universities, the commission proposed reconstituting the Executive Council of universities and appointing the Vice Chancellor as the Chairman. They stressed that the appointment of university Vice Chancellors should be done transparently through a search committee comprising the retired Chief Secretary, a University Grants Commission (UGC) nominee and three retired Vice Chancellors.

Further, they said that in-demand self-financed courses (programs funded solely through student tuition fees instead of government funding or subsidies) should be converted into regular courses and recommended that the Telugu University should be developed into a multi-disciplinary university on the lines of Maulana Azad National Urdu University.