Government urged to revoke GO 117 and revive three-tier school structure system

Leaders of Andhra Pradesh Teachers’ Federation (APTF) on November 16 (Saturday) urged the government to revoke GO 117 and revive the three-tier school structure system of primary, upper primary and high schools in the State.

In a statement, the federation’s State president G. Hrudayaraju and secretary S. Chiranjeevi said in a meeting held between teacher unions and Director of School Education V. Vijay Rama Raju, they were informed that as part of the revocation of GO 117, the upper primary schools which had less than 30 students in classes 6, 7 and 8 would be considered as primary schools and the ones with a strength of more than 60 students would be upgraded as high schools. The teacher unions were asked to suggest what should be done with upper primary schools that had a student strength of 30 to 59.

Mr. Hrudaya Raju said that in the absence of upper primary schools in close proximity, girls from marginalised sections were being married off, while boys were turning to child labour. Pointing to the fact that even after degrading and upgrading the upper primary schools into primary and high schools, there were nearly 2,000 upper primary schools left. He appealed to the department officials to allow these schools to continue in their present form and strengthen them by appointing adequate teaching staff.

He also urged the officials to extend the December 2024 deadline for enrolment of all school children in the Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) by a year, allow students of class 10 to exercise their choice in medium of instruction for writing their exams, extend the last date for payment of exam fees for students of class 10 and cancel all the apps introduced as part of reforms in the school education sector.

The federation leaders said the official had assured that he would look into the issues raised by them and do the needful.

Published - November 16, 2024 07:50 pm IST