Telangana Education Dept Plans to Address School Enrolment Drop

HYDERABAD: Government school enrolment is dropping, and the state wants to fix it before the next academic year begins. In a meeting titled “Telangana: Future Ready,” held on Wednesday at SCERT, teachers’ associations and top education officials met to discuss what’s going wrong and what might still work. The session was led by school education principal secretary Dr Yogita Rana and served as a platform for a direct exchange of concerns, proposals, and immediate interventions.

Director of school education E.V. Narasimha Reddy, opened the session by presenting comparative data on student performance in surveys like NAS and ASER. He also addressed the drop in enrolment numbers, using data-backed insights to set the tone for the discussions.

Teachers’ associations called for early enrolment drives to be moved to April or late May rather than June, arguing that earlier outreach would help bring more students into the system. They recommended introducing pre-primary sections in government schools and linking Anganwadi centres to early education efforts. Several speakers pointed out that exposure visits to well-functioning schools would offer helpful learning for educators. Others stressed the importance of providing teacher training during holidays and relying on qualified resource persons to improve teaching capacity.

Concerns about the state of classrooms and the emotional health of educators also came up. Associations suggested bringing in psychologists to conduct motivation and counselling sessions for teachers. Regular inspections, classroom-level teacher-student rapport, and proper deployment of teaching staff were flagged as necessary measures. Some demanded the appointment of permanent DEOs and MEOs to avoid disruption.

There was also criticism of the unchecked functioning of private schools. The participants urged the government to act on those running in violation of rules. Suggestions also included changes to textbooks in line with current realities and the introduction of spoken English programmes. The education department stated its intention to work closely with teachers to improve government schools. The meeting ended with a shared agreement to hold more such sessions frequently.