New academic year, same old problems

It’s school time again from Monday and many government primary and high schools are waiting to greet the students and the new academic year with a plethora of problems, shortage of accommodation and teaching staff topping the list.That a number of government schools in the city are in near ruin is well-known and the latest update on this front is that they still remain so, despite promises to the contrary and the fact that the Right to Education will be implemented from the current academic year.Asserting that all the textbooks required by students would be made available at schools when they reopen on Monday, S Jagannatha Reddy, district education officer (DEO), said already 70 per cent of the stocks had been dispatched to school points.As many as 3,037 schools are running in the city. Of them, 802 are government schools.Buildings and other infrastructure would be provided to all schools with funds available under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund, NABARD and Sarva Sikha Abhiyan, he said.“The government had built over 100 rooms for dilapidated school buildings last year. The education department has identified hundreds of decaying schools buildings and decided to build about 350 rooms for primary and high schools this year, the officer said.On the positive side, however, due to incentives like free mid-day meals and textbooks the dropout rate has come down gradually in the primary level. “In order to maintain the progress, bills of the mid-day meal scheme will hereafter be cleared every month and quality of food served to students improved,” the DEO said.“We are taking steps to provide alternative accommodation for students in case they are inconvenienced by rain.In the city, there is no teaching staff shortage and we have instructed all teachers to join duties from Monday,” he said.Jagannatha Reddy asked the officials concerned to closely monitor attendance of students and teachers and ensure that Parent-Teacher Committees in each school functioned effectively. “Issues of dropouts, out-of-school children, quality of education and availability of trained teachers will be addressed in the short to medium term,” he said.

By Mouli Mareedu

moulimareedu@gmail.com