Monday, August 31, 2009

Focus on school education, Lok Satta urges Govt.


Even as it welcomed the Government providing opportunities for higher education to larger and larger numbers of students belonging to weaker sections, the Lok Satta Party today said the Government had failed to give equal importance to primary and high school education.

Talking to the media, party spokespersons Mr. Katari Srinivasa Rao, Mrs. K. Geetha Murthy referred to the Chief Minister’s claim that Andhra Pradesh topped all other States in its budget for higher education and said the Government was building an edifice without a strong foundation.

The Lok Satta leaders quoted the Annual Status of Education Report to point out that a large percentage of students up to Class VIII could not read a couple of sentences in their mother tongue or undertake simple division and subtraction of numbers. A survey conducted by the Lok Satta revealed that most of the schools do not have pucca buildings and in most schools classes are conducted in one or two rooms. Most teachers happen to be volunteers and most of the schools do not have drinking water or toilet facilities.

Primary schools witnessed a dropout rate of about 50 percent and the Tenth Class, about 38 percent.

The Lok Satta would like the Government to pay greater attention to primary and higher education through allocation of funds, construction of school buildings, provision of amenities and appointment of teachers.

The leaders pointed out that school students as also hostel inmates went without nutritious food because of the spiraling costs of essential commodities. They wanted the Government to enhance allocation of funds for schemes that enabled poor students to pursue their education.

1 comment:

  1. Exactly on the same subject as mentioned above, quoting AP Residential School, Koyyuru Mandal in Visakhapatnam district, I submitted an application to our Hon. Tribal Welfare Minister in 1st week of July-2009. A copy of the same was given to Project Officer, ITDA-Paderu. More than 90% of my application matches with above-mentioned description. To add more to it, quality of faculty is being diluted by continueous addition of faculty belonging to weaker sections -this it seems! is a govt policy to create employment to weaker sections and at locations close to their natives to their comfort. How strange it is!!

    My point is -these same institutes were doing so well when were studying there are now it their worst ... and going down with time.

    Of coure, the system can not be changed over night. I hope our Minister will streamline the system during his tenure.

    ReplyDelete