Hyderabad: The Telangana state government will improve education in government residential schools instead of implementing the Right to Education Act, Deputy Chief Minister Kadiyam Srihari told this newspaper.

Mr Srihari, who is also the education minister, when queried about the non-implementation of the RTE Act in Telangana, told this newspaper: “We have taken a policy decision to not implement the Right to Education because if we follow the RTE Act, 25 per cent of our students from government schools will shift to private schools and we will have to close down all government schools.”

He said that many government schools have zero enrolment. “So, instead of strengthening private schools by sending our children to private schools we want to strengthen our own schools. In that context we are opting for more residential schools which are yielding good results,” Mr Srihari said.

The minister claims that there is a reverse migration of students from private to government schools. So instead of spending on private schools for implementing RTE Act if the same amount is spent on opening more residential schools, he said it will be more beneficial for the students.

“In the last three years, 573 new residential schools, and 84 new KGBVs have been opened and 88 KGBVS have been upgraded to junior colleges,” the minister said.

“We have upgraded 33 Telangana State Residential Schools into junior colleges. We have also added 53 residential degree colleges for women. We are encouraging residential education and have proposed this policy to the Centre and it has appreciated our stand,” Mr Srihari added.