Education is one of the vital services that a modern state is expected to provide to its people. It is a service that every welfare democracy is obliged to give in the most accessible form. Democratic values and virtues can be acquired only through good education. Recently, the Cockroach Janata Party re-ignited the discourse on the Indian education system through their successful protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. Its rapid growth demonstrates that there is genuine frustration among large sections of India’s youth. Issues such as unemployment, education system, examination controversies, inflation, and governance failures resonate strongly with a generation facing growing uncertainty.
India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Nehru had realized the value of university education long back. He said, “A university stands for humanism. For tolerance, for reason, for adventure of ideas and for the search of truth. It stands for the onward march of the human race towards ever higher objectives. If the universities discharge their duties adequately, then it is well with the nation and the people”.
As privatized education cannot provide these universal values as they are dependent on market rules, starting from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Argentina, Brazil, Iran, Cuba, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Turkey, New Zealand, Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uruguay to a number of other countries opted to provide free and quality education for its citizens at all levels, including college and university.
Commoditisation of higher education
However, the commoditisation of higher education has gained acceptance in the last decades in India. There has been a paradigm shift in the Twelfth Five- Year Plan (2012- 2017) of higher education for “For-Profit Institutions”. The Twelfth Five-Year Plan has favored an approach that has endorsed private capital in higher education with an eye on profit generation. Many states, including Telangana have endorsed it and promoted private capital in higher education at the cost of state funding. This has led to over privatization with the following consequences:
(a) Because public spending on higher education remains low (with Telangana spending roughly 2 per cent of its Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) on education versus a 3 per cent national state average), the system suffers from severe market imbalance.
(b) Telangana has the highest share of privately managed colleges and private enrollments in India. Nearly 63 per cent of students in the state are forced into expensive private channels.
(c) Private household expenditure on higher education in Telangana ranks among the highest in the country, meaning families shoulder costs that the public system fails to cover.
(d) Across 12 state public universities, roughly 74 per cent to 80 per cent of permanent professor positions are vacant, forcing reliance on underpaid contract staff due to a lack of regular salary funding.
Today, an array of private entities—from corporations to realtors—dominates higher education in India. This has created a highly stratified system: while students with “cultural capital” secure spots in subsidized, high-quality public institutions, the rest are forced into low-quality, expensive, self-financing private colleges. Unfortunately, this market-driven shift faces little democratic challenge. In fact, the Indian government actively encourages it through policies like fee reimbursement.
Under this “user-pay” principle, students are treated as consumers choosing a product, leading to a mushrooming of market-oriented professional courses that lack public accountability. When education loses government support, it stops serving the public good. Current professional programs train doctors and engineers to serve market demands without understanding the social inequalities that drive them. Instead of producing passive technology suppliers, higher education should cultivate thoughtful leaders committed to equitable development. This commercialisation directly undermines the “democracy of education”—the idea that public campuses must serve as secure spaces for dissent, debate, social justice, and marginalized aspirations. Historically, institutions like Osmania and Kakatiya Universities were instrumental in producing pioneer leaders for major social and political movements such as for the liberation of erstwhile Hyderabad state as well as for separate Telangana statehood. In contrast, today’s affluent, new-generation leaders often lack this perspective, as many are private providers of education and healthcare themselves.
Scenario of new Telangana State
The student community of Osmania University (OU), Kakatiya University (KU), and other state universities were the undisputed vanguard of the Telangana statehood movement. Driven by the slogan of “Neellu, Nidhulu, Niyamakalu” (Water, Funds, and Jobs), their struggle was deeply rooted in the demand for self-respect, equal opportunity, and a fair share of resources. Fulfilling the historic aspirations of these student activists within the modern higher education framework requires a shift from viewing universities as mere degree-granting factories to treating them as engines of social justice and intellectual emancipation.
Treating higher education as a public good—rather than a commercial commodity—is therefore critical for Telangana’s long-term economic, social, and political development. Because higher education creates immense “positive externalities” (benefits that spill over to society as a whole, not just the individual student), public funding and regulation yield massive returns.
Public higher education is vital for Telangana’s progress for five key reasons:
(1)Fuels the knowledge economy:It provides a steady supply of skilled talent to Hyderabad’s IT and biotech hubs while driving the foundational R&D that private universities often neglect.
(2)Drives social mobility:Subsidized tuition and reservation policies ensure equitable access for rural and marginalized communities (SC/ST/BC), breaking cycles of generational poverty.
(3)Ensures quality control:Public oversight prevents profit-driven “degree mills” and enforces strict academic standards to keep graduates employable.
(4)Protects essential fields:Unlike private institutions focused only on high-fee tech courses, public universities preserve critical, less profitable fields like basic sciences, agriculture, and public health.
(5)Fosters informed citizenship:They serve as diverse hubs for critical thinking and civic engagement, strengthening the state’s democratic fabric.
Higher education reforms: Raising benchmarks & reclaiming quality
The Telangana Education Commission (TEC), chaired by Akunuri Murali, submitted its report “Education Policy for Telangana 2026: Vision for Inclusive Excellence” to Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy. Concerning higher education, the Commission addresses severe faculty shortages and dipping standards and proposes key interventions to align degrees with global employment benchmarks:
(a)Raising the academic pass bar:Increase the undergraduate minimum pass percentage from 35 per cent to 45 per cent–50 per cent to curb easy graduation and improve assessment quality.
(b)Mass recruitment drive:implement a time-bound calendar to fill the 80per cent+ vacant regular teaching positions at state universities (like Osmania and Kakatiya) with permanent, PhD-qualified faculty.
(c) (c) 5 per cent budgetary ring-fencing:Explicitly lock 5 per cent of the state education budget for higher education to fund library digitization, laboratory overhauls, and industry research setups.
(d)B.Ed. program overhaul:Separate Bachelor of Education tracks into B.Ed. (Primary) for Pre-K to Class 5 and B.Ed. (Secondary) for Classes 6 to 12 to improve teacher training.
The way forward
1. Restoring institutional autonomy and faculty recruitment
A very critical self-reflection by policy makers includes the fact that the ultimate betrayal of the student struggles and earlier election promises has resulted in the institutional starvation of the very campuses that birthed the movement for a separate statehood.
Provided with a strong political will, measures include (a) Immediate 100 per cent Faculty Recruitment. Over 75 per cent to 80 per cent of permanent professor positions are vacant across OU and KU.
Fulfilling student aspirations means launching immediate, transparent recruitment drives to fill these vacancies with highly qualified, permanent, PhD-holding faculties, restoring the research prestige of these historic institutions. (b) Revitalizing Placement & Entrepreneurship Cells. State universities must be equipped with world-class incubation hubs (similar to T-Hub but publicly funded) to ensure that rural and marginalized students have direct pathways into Hyderabad’s booming tech, pharma, and public sectors.
2. Realizing structural financial revival
Telangana’s education funding is in crisis, with its 8.2 per cent to 9.8 per cent budget allocation falling far below its 15 per cent manifesto promise, the Commission’s 18 per cent recommendation, and the 14.5 per cent national state average. The primary bottleneck is the ePASS Tuition Fee Reimbursement (RTF) scheme, which has accumulated ₹8,591.62 crore in unpaid dues. To stop private colleges from withholding student certificates, the government is launching a ₹2,400 crore Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) model starting in the 2026–27 academic year.
Provided with a strong political will, measures include (a) A Dedicated “Telangana Movement Legacy” Endowment. Implementing the Akunuri Murali committee’s recommendation to ring-fence 5 per cent of the state education budget specifically for higher education. (b) Restoring Infrastructural Dignity. Upgrading crumbling hostels, digitizing libraries, and building state-of-the-art laboratories.
3. Democratizing access: Protecting the “Public Good” character
The Telangana student movement was highly egalitarian, composed largely of students from Bahujan, Dalit, Adivasi, and minority backgrounds (SC/ST/BC). Provided with a strong political will, measures include (a) Curbing Over-Privatization. By aggressively funding public universities, the government can lower the dependency on expensive private institutions. (b) Seamless, Debt-Free Access. Streamlining the Fee Reimbursement (RTF) and pocket-money/maintenance fee (MTF) models so that no student from a rural district is forced to drop out due to systemic bureaucratic delays.
4. Preserving the culture of democratic dissent and free thought
Campuses like OU and KU have historically been the conscience of Telangana. Fulfilling the aspirations of the statehood fighters means protecting the unique socio-political fabric of these spaces. Provided with a strong political will, measures include (a) Reviving Student Union Elections. Restoring democratic student union elections, which have been suppressed for years.
Allowing students a formal voice in campus governance honors their legacy as political thinkers and leaders. (b) Shielding Campuses from Bias. As highlighted in the Akunuri Murali report, enforcing strict institutional guardrails to keep public universities free from communal, caste, or majoritarian biases. A truly liberated Telangana university must remain an inclusive, safe, and intellectually free space for all.
(The writer is former MLA, Humboldt Expert in Agriculture, Environment and Cooperation)