VIJAYAWADA: District officials have sped up the process to hand over municipal schools to the School Education Department after an official order was released demanding immediate action on the issue. Commissioner and Director of Municipal Administration Pravin Kumar issued orders to all municipal commissioners to implement the GO 84 .
According to officials, out of 123 urban local bodies (ULBs), only 59 have municipal schools. Of the total 2114 municipal schools, 345 are high schools, 149 are upper primary schools and 1620 are primary. Out of 13,948 teacher posts allotted to these schools, 1942 are vacant. With the latest orders, these issues will now be looked after by the School Education department.
Meanwhile, municipal teachers’ associations are demanding the cancellation of GO 84. Noble Teachers Association state president Apparao Mulaka stated that they are opposing the implementation of GO 84 and said the government is forcibly implementing such a GO on municipal teachers.
He questioned the government’s reasoning of handing over municipal schools and their teachers to School Education by the evening of Friday. He also said that the move is against a constitutional amendment. He claimed cases regarding common service rules for government school and Panchayati Raj teachers were still pending in court.
Municipal Teachers Federation state president S Ram Krishna stated that there is a conspiracy to merge municipal schools with zilla parishad schools, which is hidden in the current orders of the DMA. He demanded that the government implement GO MS 181 for the municipal schools and the drawing and disbursing officer powers should be given to HMs.
Vacancies
Of the total 2114 municipal schools, 345 are high schools, 149 are upper primary schools and 1620 are primary. There, 1942 posts are vacant