Andhra Pradesh HRD Minister promises an alternative to G.O. 117 and steps to boost admissions in government schools

Andhra Pradesh HRD Minister Nara Lokesh. File
| Photo Credit: K.V.S. GIRI

Minister for Human Resources Development (HRD) Nara Lokesh on Wednesday said the Government of Andhra Pradesh would bring an alternative to G.O. 117 issued by the previous YSRCP government.

Mr. Lokesh was responding to a question raised in the Legislative Council on the reapportionment of teachers.

Due to G.O. 117, a total of 10,49,596 students from Classes 1 to 10 had moved away from the government schools. The schools with fewer than 10 students, which were 1,215 in 2021-22, increased to 5,312, registering a fourfold rise, the Minister said. Similarly, the number of schools with fewer than 20 students increased from 5,520 to 14,052. Besides, there were 12,512 single-teacher schools, he said.

Mr. Lokesh said, as promised during his padayatra, an alternative to the said G.O. would be issued, and no school would be closed.

He said the efforts of the School Education Department were towards increasing admissions in the government schools by involving all the stakeholders. If there were more than 60 students, one class and one teacher would be provided for them.

Model primary schools

“The idea is to establish 7,000 to 8,000 model primary schools. We want to provide a model school in each panchayat in the second phase,” Mr. Lokesh said, informing that the upper primary schools would continue, while a decision on pre-schools would be taken after holding discussions on the issue.

Responding to a member’s charge on “saffronisation in education,” the Minister, while strongly opposing it, said, “We wish students to excel in their studies, irrespective of caste, religion or region. Bringing religion into the curriculum is not appropriate.”

Asserting that the textbooks introduced by the coalition government were free of caste, religion or regional biases, Mr. Lokesh questioned the YSRCP members’ failure to participate in the debate on education.

Poser to Botcha

The Minister questioned the absence of data on the number of students who studied in schools during the YSRCP rule, and sought an explanation from YSRCP MLC Botcha Satyanarayana, who was the Education Minister, on the “missing data.”

The council also focused on the decline in student strength by 12 lakh in the government schools and junior colleges, to which Mr. Satyanarayana objected.

In response, Mr. Lokesh pointed out that when a discussion on the education sector had taken place in the Legislative Assembly, the YSRCP members had stayed away.