Kakinada: Government schools in the state are in bad shape with no enrollment for primary education classes registered in nearly 3,200 schools in 13 districts in the state as on June 30 in the current academic year 2015-16.
In East Godavari district, nearly 190 schools registered zero enrollment and 1640 schools out of 3,867 in the district, registered below 30 enrollments. 155 private schools are also is same pitiable condition in the district.
The enrollment is a serious concern for the teachers and also teachers’ unions as the government is planning to close below 30 enrollment schools and its clusters and considering merging them with schools within a radius of five km.
Many parents opt for private and corporate education and they admitted their children in such schools for better quality education. Corporate schools are running buses to even remote areas also and attracting the parents in this direction.
The staff of the corporate and private schools toured the villages and campaigned for their school. But, the government teachers failed to convince the parents to join their schools according to education department officials.
According to GO No.1 in the year 1992, no private schools should be set up in the villages or mandal headquarters without co-nsent of the headmaster of the nearest governme-nt or ZP schools.
Later, the GO was amended in favour of the private schools but it has become harmful to the government education system.
“The government is planning to close cluster schools and set up 1,000 model schools with a radius of 13 kilometres. It will be difficult for the parents to send their children to the government schools in view of its distance. This will badly affect girls education,” said the Andhra Pradesh State United Teachers Federation State Audit Committee convener K. Sathiraju.
He said that the previous Congress led UPA government introduced English medium schools but now the BJP government at the Centre is planning to close the English medium schools with below 75 student strength.
He said that this will be an extra burden on middle and below poverty line sections to educate their children.
