Hyderabad: Being a nationwide organisation working for the student community and education sector with an aim of promoting quality education, SIO has started a campaign in Telangana with the theme ‘India as a Welfare State’.
Under this theme, SIO Telangana is conducting series of programmes. 

As part of this series, a round table meeting titled ‘Education in India’ was held in Hyderabad to discuss the status of education in the country. At this meeting, prominent educationists and intellectuals discussed various topics such as National Education Policy (NEP) and its implementation, the status of government schools and education sector in India in general and Telangana in specific, scientific temperament in education as well as pedagogy and psychology of teaching.

Mr. Amirullah Khan said that the New Education Policy doesn’t have any explicit focus on learning level. He further said that the most important issue facing Indians in general and the Muslim community in specific is Education, while the second issue is jobs. “Government should focus on improving quality of education,” he said.

Ms. Javeriya Saleem discussed various surveys carried out to know the status of education said that there are many loopholes in the data. She further said that there is no right direction or approach for policy implementation, no accountability for teachers and government schools. 

Professor Dharmiya, former Professor at Osmania University said that the government’s policies promote drop-outs, as deliberately cuts in the school budget are depriving students of the country. He further said we should think on critical lines and work to improve the status of education in India.  

In his concluding speech, Dr. Talha Fayazuddin, State President, SIO Telangana said that the constitution of India describes India as a welfare state, and the foremost necessity a welfare state should be to fulfill is providing education. “The reports and statistics discussed here clearly show that the current sorry status of education in our country is quite palpable. Therefore, we as responsible citizens and groups need to further discuss the means to facilitate and impart equal, equitable and inclusive education. We also need to understand the true concept and philosophy of knowledge and education without which education not only gets limited to employment and income but also creates literate ignorants who are dangerous to society. It takes political as well as social will to understand and accept the change that is very much needed today, and we need to spearhead this change,” he said.

Many other guests, including Dr. Kumar, Dr. Samuel HMI, Dr. Salahuddin, Professor at Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), participated in the discussion.