Hyderabad: The Telangana government’s order mandating private schools affiliated to the state board to use only government printed textbooks has put parents of primary students in a spot.
Like every year, the schools had sold books printed by private publishers by April last week by collecting Rs 600 from each student from Class I to V.
The government issued orders last week saying that these books are not valid and threatened to cancel the recognition of schools if private textbooks are followed.
Schools are forcing parents to buy government books again. This is a peculiar situation in the state regarding adopting government textbooks in private schools.
Even in the undivided state private schools never followed government textbooks in primary classes but used to adopt it from Class VI to X.
This is because there are no pre-primary classes in government schools and the Class 1 syllabus of these books comprise learning alphabets, numbers and rhymes which the students in private schools learn in nursery, LKG and UKG sections.
If government books are followed private students will have to learn the same things they had learnt in pre-primary classes.
Private schools fear that if government books are introduced in Class I to V, it will lead to large scale migration of students from state board schools to other boards like CBSE, ICSE etc, where standards are higher and they will have to shut shop.
“We have no objection to introducing government textbooks. But first the government should introduce pre-primary classes in its schools and upgrade the syllabus for Classes I to V. Will parents agree to make their children learn alphabets, numbers, rhymes again in Class-I?” they asked.
TS Private Schools Managements’ Association president S. Sreenivas Reddy has submitted a representation to Deputy CM Kadiam Srihari who holds the education portfolio, urging him to exempt private schools from adopting government textbooks at least this year since it was too late by the time the government issued orders and as parents have already purchased private books. But the government remains adamant.
“Schools recognised by the government have to follow government textbooks. There is no question of allowing private schools to follow books of their choice. The new books have been devised in line with the latest policy of implementing Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation in all schools,” said Mr Srihari.
