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The Telangana People’s Front, a citizens’ group comprising former bureaucrats, academics, activists and working professionals, has urged the state government to introduce and pass the Telangana Private Unaided School Fee Regulatory and Monitoring Commission Bill in the upcoming Assembly session.
Speaking at a round-table meeting on school fee regulation and strengthening public education on Thursday, August 14, former IAS officer and Telangana People’s Front member Akunuri Murali said the Telangana Education Commission had submitted a draft of the Bill to the state government in January 2025, but no action had been taken since. Murali was the chairperson of the Telangana Education Commission when the draft was submitted.
“We felt that we need to work as a pressure group, work with parents, and make it an election agenda to make this happen,” Murali said.
He cited data from the Union Education Ministry’s Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) Plus 2025-26 report to highlight the growing dependence on private schools despite high fees, which he attributed to inadequate funding and infrastructure in government schools.
Telangana has 41,762 schools, according to the latest UDISE Plus data. Private unaided recognised schools account for around 32% of the total. However, 65% of the state's nearly 77 lakh students from pre-primary to Class 12 are enrolled in private schools.
The proportion of students attending private schools has increased from 60% in 2023-24 to 65% in 2025-26, even as the number of private schools has declined by more than 1,100 during the period.
The shift towards private schools is also evident among new entrants to the education system. Of the 6.4 lakh students admitted to Class 1 in Telangana in 2025-26, around 70% were enrolled in private schools, according to UDISE Plus data.
Murali also pointed to the state of government schools, noting that nearly 82% of primary schools in Telangana have multi-grade teaching, where a single teacher teaches students from different grades in the same classroom simultaneously.
The Telangana People’s Front has called on the government to immediately approve and implement the proposed Telangana Private Unaided School Fee Regulatory and Monitoring Commission Bill.
Under the proposed legislation, a regulatory commission would classify private schools into different categories based on factors such as location, land area, infrastructure, extracurricular facilities, type of teachers and school leadership. The commission would then prescribe an upper limit on fees for each category.
The group also demanded increased government spending on infrastructure in public schools and the publication of district-wise annual report cards detailing government school enrolment, staffing and learning outcomes.
The demands come amid continuing concerns over the rising cost of private schooling in Telangana, particularly in Hyderabad, where private school fees remain largely unregulated.
