The Business of Education in Telangana: Fee Exploitation, Government Neglect, and the Right to Education

Transcript by T. Chiranjeevulu, Retired IAS Officer and Chairman, BC Intellectuals Program, Hyderabad

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Hello everyone, this is T. Chiranjeevulu, retired IAS officer and Chairman of the BC Intellectuals Program, Hyderabad. Today let's discuss the business that education has become in Telangana — the exploitation through fees, the negligence of the government, and the right to education.

When the state of Telangana was being formed, people were told that a "Golden Telangana" would emerge, where education from KG to PG would be free for everyone. The rulers held out that promise. But after Telangana was formed, education became even more of a business.

The Shift from Government to Private Schools

According to UDISE data, in 2014–15 Telangana had:

• Total schools: 43,839
• Government schools: 28,822 (about 65.74%)
• Private schools: 14,438 (about 32.93%)

By 2025–26, the numbers had changed to:

• Total schools: 39,769
• Government schools: 24,219 (down to about 60.89%)
• Private schools: 11,832

Looking at students from Class 1 to Class 8 (per UDISE):

• In 2014–15: total students 49,19,190 — Government: 22,87,381 (46.49%); Private: 25,62,000 (52.09%)
• In 2025–26, for Class 1 to Class 10: total students 60,39,639 — Government: 16,80,000 (28%); Private: 43,58,000 (72%)

In other words, after Telangana was formed, the share of students in private schools rose from 52% to 72%, while the government school share fell from about 46% to 28%. It is no exaggeration to say that education in Telangana today is not a public service but a business.

Growth of Residential Schools

The number of government residential schools rose from 298 in 2014 to 1,004 by 2026, and the number of students in them grew from 1.4 lakh to 5.5 lakh. But with about 60 lakh students studying in Classes 1–10 across the state, this growth in residential schools is nowhere near sufficient. This is precisely why provisions like fee regulation and Section 12(C) of the Right to Education (RTE) Act need to be implemented.

A History of Failed Fee Regulation

Private — especially corporate — education institutions in Telangana face virtually no check on their fee structures, and there is no law specifically governing this. As a result, private and corporate institutions have been exploiting students unchecked. A look at the history of fee regulation laws shows a pattern of repeated failure:

• AP Education Act, 1982: A broader education law that included provisions to regulate private school fees, including Section 7 regarding the AP Education Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Prohibition of Capitation Fee) Act, 1983, which addressed tuition fee regulation.
• GOMs No. 1 (1994): Issued under the 1983 Act. Rules 16 and 18 of this order effectively handed fee-setting power back to private school managements themselves, based on their own expenditure — giving private schools near-total independence over their own fees.
• GOMs 91 (2009): Aimed at controlling the proliferation of private schools in the 1990s. It proposed a District Fee Regulation Committee in every district, chaired by the District Collector, before which every school would have to present its proposed fees, along with audits of school income and expenditure. Private school managements challenged this order in court, and it was stayed. Though the High Court and Supreme Court later upheld the government order, successive governments failed to implement it.
• Tirupati Rao Committee (2017): Formed after Telangana's creation to regulate corporate school fees. It submitted its report in December 2017 with several recommendations. Instead of implementing them, the government appointed a Cabinet Sub-Committee in 2018 — and the report was effectively shelved, with no further discussion on record.
• GO 46 (COVID period): Stated that schools could only charge tuition fees, not other charges, and should collect fees monthly rather than in lump sums. This order, too, was never properly enforced.
• Telangana Education Commission draft bill (2025): Proposed District Fee Regulation Committees and allowed private schools to revise fees once every three years. The government then formed yet another committee, headed by Sri Keshava Rao, whose report has still not been submitted.

No other state in India has fees as high as those charged in Telangana today.

The Scale of the Fee "Business"

• About 43 lakh students from Class 1 to 10 study in private schools in Telangana.
• At an average expenditure of around ₹60,000 per student, this amounts to roughly ₹26,000 crore in annual spending.
• Ordinary middle-class families mortgage their assets and pour their life savings into sending their children to these private schools.
• Some corporate schools in West Hyderabad reportedly charge ₹15–16 lakh just for LKG admission.
• Two corporate schools were reportedly sold recently — one for ₹1,600 crore and another for ₹700 crore — illustrating the scale of the "business" that education has become.

By comparison, in Tamil Nadu, a Fee Regulation Act has existed since 2008, and the rates fixed under it were even painted on school walls by the state's leadership. Across the wider education sector in Telangana — schools, intermediate colleges, medical and engineering education combined — the business is estimated at over ₹1 lakh crore, with school education alone accounting for around ₹30,000 crore. At the intermediate level, about 70% of students study in private colleges.

Why Hasn't a Fee Regulation Law Been Passed?

A consistent observation is that around 90% of private school managements belong to dominant, upper-caste groups. The argument made here is that because the ruling establishment is largely drawn from these same dominant castes, there is little political will to bring in a fee regulation law that would constrain institutions run by their own social groups. In cities like Delhi, active parent committees have helped push fee regulation forward to a greater extent; in Telangana, neither the government nor parent committees have been sufficiently active on this front.

The Right to Education Act and Section 12(C)

The Right to Education Act recognizes education as a fundamental right and mandates free and compulsory education for children aged 6–14. Section 12(C) of the RTE Act requires every private/corporate school to reserve 25% of seats for children from economically, socially, and politically disadvantaged backgrounds — with the central and state governments sharing the reimbursement cost in a 60:40 ratio.

Twenty-two states in India implement Section 12(C). Only four states do not: Telangana, Kerala, West Bengal, and Punjab. Notably, even Andhra Pradesh — separated from Telangana — implements this provision. Despite affidavits filed in the High Court and Supreme Court promising implementation, Telangana has not acted on this commitment, suggesting powerful institutional and lobbying interests at work.

Meanwhile, the government has planned large investments in new institutions — such as "Young India" integrated schools and Telangana Public Schools — reportedly budgeting around ₹200 crore per school, with plans for about 120 such schools (one per constituency), totaling roughly ₹25,000 crore. Yet the same urgency is not applied to enforcing the free 25% RTE quota or regulating private school fees.

There is no dedicated regulatory authority for school fees in Telangana, even though such bodies exist for other sectors — for example, the Telangana Fee and Admission Regulatory Committee (TAFRC) for engineering and medical colleges, the Electricity Regulatory Authority, and the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA).

As the speaker recalls, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh once said his goal was for the Prime Minister's son and a peon's son to sit on the same school bench. The argument made here is that Telangana's leadership, shaped by what the speaker calls a "feudal mindset," has been reluctant to let children from disadvantaged backgrounds enter corporate schools.

Budget Allocation for Education

• Telangana's 2026–27 budget: ₹3.24 lakh crore
• Allocation for education: ₹26,674 crore (about 8.2% of the budget)
  • Secondary education: ₹21,231 crore
  • Higher education: ₹5,443 crore
  • Of the total, ₹19,721 crore goes toward establishment (salary/administrative) costs, leaving only ₹6,953 crore in capital expenditure for schemes.

For comparison, in 2026–27:

• Bihar allocated 19.63% of its budget to education
• Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh allocated 10.7–11.7%
• The national average is 14.7–15%
• Telangana, despite presenting itself as one of India's wealthiest states, allocated only 8.2%

Telangana also ranks low nationally in literacy and education standards. The point made is that while large sums go toward prestige projects, education itself remains underfunded.

Higher Education and Private Universities

Telangana passed a Private Universities Act in 2018. The speaker notes the irony that Telangana's formation was built on the slogan of "water, funds, and jobs" (నీళ్లు, నిధులు, నియామకాలు), yet for the last 12 years, not a single faculty position has reportedly been filled in any state university — while private universities, which do not follow reservation norms, have proliferated.

Current university landscape in Telangana:

• 19 government universities
• 12 private universities
• 5 deemed universities
• 3 universities from other states with a presence in Telangana (roughly 20 private/non-state institutions in total)

The argument made is that private university managements are also dominated by the same upper-caste groups, leaving little space for SC/ST/BC representation — a concern repeated for medical education as well, where of 35 medical colleges in the state, 27 are private, with managements again described as dominated by the same social groups.

Closing Argument

The central argument of this transcript is that Telangana's education sector — schools, engineering colleges, and medical colleges alike — is overwhelmingly controlled by private interests, and that this has allowed fee regulation laws, RTE Section 12(C), and adequate education budgets to go unimplemented for over a decade, regardless of which party is in government (including the Congress government that originally authored the national RTE Act in 2009).

The speaker calls for three concrete steps:

1. Enact and implement a fee regulation law for private schools.
2. Implement Section 12(C) of the RTE Act, reserving 25% of private/corporate school seats for disadvantaged students.
3. Increase public investment in education to match national averages.

The closing message urges the public to take notice of these issues and to pressure the government, arguing that without public pressure, governments are unlikely to change their approach.

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Note: This is a translated and lightly reorganized version of a Telugu-language video transcript.