metro india news  I AMARAVATI

State Education, IT and Electronics Minister Nara Lokesh said in the assembly on Wednesday that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's resolve is to bring back the glory of government universities in the state and added that he was given a target to place one university from AP to be in the top-100 in the world in the next five years and was also  asked to improve the state’s position in the National Institute Ranking Framework(NIRF) rankings from 9th to 3rd.

Replying to a question asked by Peeleru MLA Nallari Kishore Kumar Reddy about upgrading Kalikiri engineering college to the level of a university, Minister Lokesh assured that a suitable decision about granting university status to the engineering college at Kalikiri will be taken after discussing with officials. He said that it is the government’s desire to have a university in every distict in private as well as public sectors. "We are doing an in-depth study on the rule of commissionerate, higher education council and curriculum clean-up so as to carry out large scale reforms in the education sector," he said.

The minister also responded to a question raised by MLA Prasanthi Reddy about setting up pharma, engineering and women’s degree colleges in Nellore district and filling up vacancies in Vikrama Simhapuri university . “Admissions in government and private degree colleges are low. 

We have focused on how to strengthen these and bring about industry connectivity. We will discuss how to set up a women's degree college and implement arts courses Apart from computer science and electronics, we will also strive to connect the industry and get placements in courses other than electronics.” he said.

He also said that the government is considering to bring up a separate policy for aided colleges.He added that out of the 4,330 faculty posts in universities, 3282 vacancies are yet to be filled. Minister Lokesh said that as soon as the one-man committee report is received, the legal hurdles will be removed and the vacancies will be filled up.

While Buchaiah Chowdary sought steps to ensure that posts in aided educational institutions are not put up for sale, Minister Lokesh said that such things will not happen in the new aided policy after government recruitment. Blurb: Government is considering to bring up a separate policy for aided colleges.He added that out of the 4,330 faculty posts in universities, 3282 vacancies are yet to be filled