Overview
- The Telangana government’s GO No. 97, issued in July, shifts polytechnic colleges, ITIs and ATCs into the Young India Skill University under the newly named SHAKTI department to align training with industry through public‑private partnerships.
- Statewide protests by polytechnic students, teacher and staff groups have intensified and led to dharnas, a planned bandh and multiple preventive detentions with videos showing confrontations between police and protesters.
- On Thursday students met BRS leaders who publicly backed the agitation and called for immediate withdrawal of GO 97 and a White Paper explaining YISU’s structure, finances, assets and PPP terms.
- TP‑JAC and 16 polytechnic staff associations pressed education officials for safeguards for jobs, promotions, fee reimbursement and to protect the State Board of Technical Education and Training’s role and ECET lateral‑entry pathways.
- Young India Skill University was created in 2024 to standardise vocational training, but critics say moving three‑year AICTE‑recognised diplomas into a skills university could raise fees, change pay and promotion rules for staff and weaken diploma recognition for low‑income students seeking engineering or government jobs.