Hyderabad, March 4 -- The Telangana Education Commission, set up to draft a comprehensive policy covering everything from pre-primary to university level, including technical education, submitted its report to Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on February 26. The commission spent 14 months on the exercise, visiting 305 institutions across all 33 districts, convening multiple rounds of stakeholder consultations and undertaking both inter-state and international study visits before arriving at its findings.

What those findings reveal is a public education system that has been, in more ways than one, hollowing itself out.

Private school enrolment in the state has crossed 60 per cent, up from around 40 per cent in 2013-14. Government school en...