The cabinet has approved the proposal to set up new universities in the district headquarters, among the districts that do not have even one university. The places to be set up universities are Karimnagar, Mahbubnagar, Srikakulam, Machhilipatnam, Potti Sriramulu Nellore and Kurnool.

The state government has also decided to set up 19 new degree colleges, eight junior colleges and eight polytechnics in the state. An education complex would also come up in Hyderabad to provide training to college teachers.

Since the inception of Congress government in 2004, Chief Minister Rajasekhara Reddy has been concentrating in establishing new universities in the areas, which do not have universities so that to avoid crowds in the existing universities.

The state government set up a university each in three regions in 2006 at Nizamabad, Rajahmundry and Kadapa. In October 2006, it also announced the setting up of another university at Nalgonda of the Telangana region.

Meanwhile, the State government has decided to follow Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) syllabus in all 6,500 government high schools in the state from this academic year. Though the entire teaching faculty and officials of the education department, including educationists, felt that existing State syllabus is more suitable to the prevailing environment in the state and by quality-wise also it is best, the government has taken unmilitary decision.

Students from Andhra Pradesh have been performing well in national entrance test like admission into prestigious IITs by following state syllabus. Identifying advantage in state syllabus to face competitive examinations, many students from CBSE syllabus have been shifting to State syllabus.

At this stage, the government’s decision to follow CBSE syllabus is fear may only fetch state government’s intentions to withdraw slowly from the primary education sector.

Surprisingly, the government issued GO in this regard just two days before the opening of schools after summer vacations with out any preparations to follow CBSE syllabus. Even text books were not kept ready. It was decided to follow state syllabus for the first two months this year, till the ready of new text books.

Meanwhile, the government has also decided to start English medium classes in 6,500 government schools thought there is shortage of English medium teachers. The government has just given a 13-training at Hyderabad for some teachers as resource person on English-medium teaching. In turn, they were asked to train teachers at district level, who would later train at mandal level.