Owaisi advocates enhanced education access and standards in Telangana

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi on Thursday made a strong case for raising educational standards and widening access to schooling, while addressing a gathering at a curriculum development ceremony in the city.

Mr. Owaisi was addressing a gathering at a curriculum development and release ceremony where he said that Salar-e-Millat Educational Trust’s efforts are collective in nature and aimed at bringing first-generation learners into the formal system. While education remained central, he underlined the need to make students “street smart” and confident.

He said the initial challenge was persuading families to enrol children despite education being offered free of cost. Teams were sent to slum areas to identify children who had never attended school, as well as girls who had completed Class X but discontinued their studies and could not pursue intermediate courses. In several neighbourhoods, small home-based play schools were set up, with basic teaching aids such as blackboards, chalk, alphabets and numbers, to familiarise children with learning through play.

Highlighting the support for higher education, Mr Owaisi shared that only 9% of engineering students were promoted to the next year without backlogs. Another 50% with backlogs were promoted to the next semester. He pointed out that tuitions are being extended to engineering students. He expressed the hope much like the way curriculum for LKG to Class V was developed, the educational trust would eventually develop course material for civil services coaching.

“I would like to be remembered more for my work in education than for my political speeches,” Mr. Owaisi said, even as he urged people to sponsor the education of orphans and children from under-privileged backgrounds.