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Hyderabad: Less than 1 per cent of Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TGSWREIS) students who graduated with a degree in 2023-24 were able to stay in a job for at least 3 months, according to the society’s secretary, Dr VS Alugu Varshini.

To address this issue, the TGSWREIS is initiating multiple interventions at different levels of the students’ education, preparing them to face the competition they will be facing once they graduate in any stream chosen by them in the future.

There are various initiatives that have already been launched to address the shortcomings prevailing in the system in the 238 social welfare Gurukuls across the state.

On Tuesday, May 13, Alugu Varshini gave a presentation and interacted with the media, detailing various steps being taken to take TGSWREIS to the next level.

Unnati-Udyogam

The ‘Unnati’ initiative is being launched by TGSWREIS in the third week of June 2025, with the support of ‘Unnati Foundation’. The final year students in social welfare junior colleges, and also former students under the age of 25 who couldn’t find jobs, will undergo 200 hours of training, which includes 90 hours of in-class training, to be equipped with the right skills to crack the interviews.

The students will be given orientation for jobs, trained in preparing their curriculum vitae and soft skills, and will be urged to first look for jobs in their respective districts in micro, medium and small enterprises (MSME).

All the 238 institutions are being equipped with a classroom with a projector or a TV with HDMI and an internet connection.

On the last day of the training, the profiles of the students will be uploaded to a web portal called ‘Udyogam,’ which serves as a link between the job-seekers and the employers.

“There are 17,000 to 18,000 skilled jobs available in each of the erstwhile districts every year. Our goal is to prepare 36,000 students to be job-ready every year through this effort,” Varshini said, also observing that early marriages, domestic violence, drug addiction and unemployment could be addressed through this effort.

Coding and computing in all schools

With a view to equipping the students with the right programming skills at a very early age, students from Class 6 to 9 in residential schools, and students in the first year in the residential junior colleges, will be taught programming languages like Scratch, HTML and Python as part of their curriculum.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been entered into between TGSWREIS and Raspberry Pi Foundation, and training has been given to selected teachers.

Five students from each school have been trained in this curriculum, and they will be guiding 15 students in his/her class in coding. Budding coders from each school will be engaged in publishing coding workbooks and projects.

The Society will also be publishing books in computing and coding to be given to students.

“Through this effort, the students who graduate from the institutions will have skills to join any major industry, as they will have knowledge equivalent to any engineer who does programming,” Varshini said.

NEET, JEE, CLAT, UPSC and other competitive exams

Only 10 per cent of students from TGSWREIS Centres of Excellence (CoE) appearing for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and the Joint Entrance Examinations (JEE) for admissions into IITs, IIITs and NITs, were able to secure admissions.

To address this shortcoming, from this year, Varshini decided to introduce foundation courses in academics at 9 social welfare institutions. A target has been set to achieve 500 seats in IITs and 600 seats in MBBS through the five-year foundation programme which begins from Class 8.

She said assistance will be sought from private institutions like FIITJEE and Narayana institutions to learn from their best practices in achieving results.

In addition to the 6 hours of regular curriculum, students interested in the foundation programmes (through internal assessment) will be involved in 3 hours of extraordinary preparation for these exams.

“This shall not be seen as something not adhering to the existing curriculum, but as something over and above it, so that capable students will be prepared to meet the competition after they graduate from here,” Varshini noted.

For students pursuing MEC and CEC streams in junior colleges, Varshini said that they will be given foundation training in Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), company secretary and chartered accountant exams.

An overhaul of vocational programmes

Pointing out that the vocational courses being offered by TGSWREIS needed to be current with the demands of the job market, Varshini said that 15 courses which were in good demand were being introduced, such as in electronics and computer sciences, corporate garment technology, chartered accountancy, company secretary, office assistantship, PMP, Six Sigma, and human resource management, among others.

“There was a vocational programme in agricultural science before, but there was no land for farming or any laboratory. So we chose to discontinue that course and instead concentrate on other courses which are high in demand,” she said.

She said that for certain programmes there will be a tie-up with the Young India Skills University as well.

Connecting the students with French

With a view to impart additional language skills among interested students, TGSWREIS is also introducing A1, B and C certificate courses in French starting this year.

In this initiative, which is being launched by tying up with the French Institute of India and the French Embassy, 70 teachers have already received training in A1 certification. They will be training students of Class 7, 8 and 9 in French during special evening classes.

By the time the students complete their A1 certification, the teachers will achieve B certification (by December 2025). The final step is to attain C certification, which is equivalent to a degree in French.

“After their Class 10, the students can join apprenticeship, and after Class 12, they will have this vocational skill with normal education. After their degree, they will become 100 per cent employable,” Varshini said.

Mental wellness, the magic of change

One of the issues affecting people of all ages is suicide. It has also crept into social welfare Gurukuls, and according to Varshini, there were two unfortunate deaths by suicide last year by boys studying in Class 7 and Inter first year, and quite a few suicide attempts made by the students.

While the causes for suicides vary as the students come from the weakest sections, among which domestic violence and crime are rampant, Varshini observes that it is between 10 and 18 years of age—when the students witness rapid growth, adolescence and all that excess baggage they bring—that there is the need to address the issue at the right time.

A total of 720 teachers have undergone training in “emotional wellbeing and therapeutic life coaching” through NLP trainer and behavioural scientist Mohammad Rafi.

The teachers have been trained in peak performance exercises like stress buster activities, sound therapy, and other activities that will help reduce mental stress among the children and help them achieve focus in their studies.

These teachers, who are now the ‘mental health leaders,’ will be running anonymous rooms to address the mental health issues of the students.

In addition to this, TGSWREIS has recently launched Project MITRA, which aims to provide structured psychological support within the school ecosystem, foster emotional well-being, familial bonds, grievance redressal, and a suggestion platform among students.

Project Mitra introduces card-driven AI-inbuilt telephone boxes in every Gurukul school. The phones not only help the students to talk to one parent/guardian free of cost, but also help the students to register their grievances, suggestions, and seek help using the AI chat box.

Eat Right School Certification

One of the measures taken to ensure the quality of food in the social welfare Gurukuls is getting the ‘Eat Right School Certification’ from the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which is under process in all the social welfare Gurukuls.

Under this certification, health and hygiene will be promoted across all the campuses, activities on food and water safety will be held, 20 hours of training will be given in various aspects of food safety, a common diet will be followed, food safety officials will be involved, and food safety volunteers will be established in the schools.

Though there were some incidents of food poisoning reported in social welfare Gurukuls last year, Alugu Varshini claims that the institution wasn’t directly responsible for those incidents.

She gave various reasons for food poisoning that could be caused at any stage of the food supply chain, or could also arise due to outside food which is sometimes consumed by the children.

Varshini also pointed out that all cooking agencies have received FSSAI certification, and there has been continuous monitoring of food safety standards, which has prevented food poisoning incidents from happening in recent times.

Transparency in admissions

One of the shocking revelations from Varshini on the occasion was that 40 per cent of students who were admitted to TGSWREIS in the past had no caste certificates, and 60 per cent had no income certificates.

She stated that the admissions process is presently being done in the most transparent manner, with logins created for every student who has applied, giving the complete details of his/her admission, including the reason for rejection (if not admitted).

Varshini said that logins have also been created for the Members of the Legislative Assemblies so that they could look at the status of the students who have been allotted seats. She, however, stated that only she was authorised to edit any student’s admission credentials, that too only if the concerned officials upload the documents concerned, with their signatures.

This year, there have been 1,69,171 applications received from prospective students for a total of 57,523 seats available, out of which 55,504 seats have been allotted to the students in the first two rounds of counselling. There are 2,019 seats vacant, which are special category seats. They will be filled in the final round of counselling on May 20. The students are expected to report to the campus on June 10, and the new academic year will commence from June 13.

Other developments

Varshini said that till now, 104 social welfare Gurukuls have their own buildings and the rest are being run in rented premises or in integrated hostels.

She disclosed that 49 girls’ residential schools and 42 boys’ residential schools are becoming part of the Young India Integrated Residential Schools being constructed in the state. She clarified that though these schools will be merged with the other welfare schools in one integrated campus, the proportion of the seats will not change.

She also mentioned that there are 36 stand-alone social welfare schools, for which the state government has given administrative sanctions to be set up on government lands wherever available. She stated that one or two Gurukuls (social welfare and BC welfare) could be constructed on the same premises if land is available for one of the institutions and vice versa.

There was an agricultural science college offering Bachelor’s in Science Agriculture (BSA) established in Siddipet in June 2023 without any affiliation, building, sanctioned strength or any lab.

Varshini said that recently, 100-acre land has been identified in Bejjenki of Manakondur Assembly Constituency, where a permanent campus for the college is in the offing, following all the norms of a university.