VIJAYAWADA: Chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu mooted Edu Grid in Andhra Pradesh by interlinking all the universities in the state.
Reviewing education sector, during the two-day Collectors Conference in Vijayawada on Tuesday, he stressed the need for improving the skill sets of the youth in the state, which he felt were not on par with others.
AP Skill Development Corporation chairman Ganta Subbarao said till date, a total of 11 lakh applications had been received for skill upgradation in the state. As against the target of imparting skills to 90,000 youth in 2015-16, 82,000 were provided training till date. “The target for the next fiscal has been fixed as 2 lakh youth,” he said.
Emphasising the need for good infrastructure for schools, the chief minister asked the officials concerned to complete the works of compound walls for all the schools at the earliest. He also announced that Telugu would be made mandatory in private schools and English medium would be introduced in government schools.
“Anganwadi centres in the state would be run as pre-schools and necessary educational toys for these schools will be provided,” the chief minister said. He wanted to know why 4,500 anganwadis out of the sanctioned 8,924 were not grounded and asked the officials to take up the issue on priority. Officials concerned were also asked to ensure every anganwadi centre is provided with required funds and power supply. He also asked them to run the anganwadi centres from government school premises in cities and towns. Those anganwadis, which lack their own buildings, should be run from government schools, saving on the rent, he said.
Reiterating his government’s commitment to welfare of BCs, SCs and STs, Naidu said they have taken several measures and asked the officials to ensure all the welfare measures were implemented in a foolproof manner. Stating that they have introduced biometric attendance system in social welfare hostels to ensure punctuality and regular attendance of the student, he said in the next four years all the social welfare hostels would be converted to residential schools in a phased manner.
Officials were asked to take stock of the social census and compile information of all communities. When he was informed that BC Sub Plan for 2016-17 was ready, he asked the officials to ensure that real beneficiaries of the schemes were receiving the benefits. He asked officials to strive for removing inequality between SC, ST and other communities.
Collectors were asked to continue holding awareness drives for Kapu Runa Mela in their district and streamline minority welfare needs alongside other departments.