Owaisi advocates enhanced education access and standards in Telangana

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

Mr. Owaisi, while addressing a gathering at a curriculum development and publication ceremony, said the efforts of the Salar-e-Millat Education Foundation were collective in nature and aimed at bringing first generation students into the formal system. While it remains a hub for education, he emphasized that students must be “street smart” and confident.

The first challenge, he said, was convincing parents to enroll their children despite education being offered free of charge. Teams were sent to slum areas to identify children who had never been to school, as well as girls who had completed Grade X but left their education unfinished and were unable to attend secondary courses. To get children used to learning through play, small home-based play schools with basic teaching aids such as blackboards, chalk, the alphabet, and numbers were established in many neighborhoods.

Highlighting the support for higher education, Mr. Owaisi shared that only 9% of engineering students are promoted to the next year without backlog. The other 50% with backlogs were promoted to the next period. He noted that the courses were also extended to engineering students. He expressed the hope that similar to the development of the curriculum from LKG to Class V, the education foundation will eventually develop course material for civil services coaching.

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