VIJAYAWADA: Keen on improving standards in government schools, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy directed officials of the school education department to introduce the English medium from Class 1 to Class 8 from the next academic year and also balance the student-teacher ratio by filling the vacant teacher posts in January every year.
As part of the reform, the government will include the environment, climate change and road safety in the curriculum for school students. On Wednesday, the Chief Minister conducted a review on education with officials and discussed several issues. He directed the officials to introduce the English medium in all government schools from the next academic year and also provide training to teachers in order to meet the change and cope with the regular teaching.
Vacant posts to be filled by January every year
Accordingly, around 70,000 teachers will be trained at the District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) for teaching in the English medium. The vacant posts of teachers will be filled up in January every year and a healthy teacher-student ratio maintained at all times.
He further instructed the officials to prepare an action plan to ensure that every mandal has one junior college and upgrade high schools to junior colleges wherever there is a possibility. The Chief Minister also wanted setting up of degree colleges in every Assembly constituency. As part of refurbishing government schools under ‘Then and Now’ initiative, as many as 44,512 schools across the State are going to get a makeover. In the first phase, 15, 410 schools will be covered and, in each phase, schools under Panchayati raj, municipal, tribal, social, BC welfare, etc., have to be covered. The first phase should be completed by March 14, 2020 and there will also be a social audit, he said.
Parents should be involved in the education of children and the quality of mid-day meal and eggs supplied should be improved, he told the officials. Brushing aside the talk that permissions were not being given to private colleges, the Chief Minister said, if the institutions have the stipulated infrastructure, there will not be any problem.