VIJAYAWADA: The admission to the government schools across the State was started on June 29. However, the municipal corporation high school at Satyanarayanapuram, Vijayawada, which was named after freedom fighter and first Chief Minister of Andhra Tanguturi Prakasam Pantulu’, put up a ‘no admission’ board in front of the school on June 28 as it can’t take admissions due to its huge strength. The situation has been the same in the school for the past few years.
Inquiries from parents have escalated with the quality of education offered by the school in sports, NCC, digital education along with the teaching subjects. Several students from the school have been getting national scholarships and admission in IIITs, increasing the brand name of the school.
The school authorities have put the ‘no vacancy’ board to control inquiries from parents. However, the school is admitting students to Class III. The pass percentage of the school is over 90 per cent for the past 5 years, except this year when the examinations were held after the Covid lull. Digital education has top priority in the school, which has two Science and three digital labs.
TVS Prakash, a teacher of the school, said 21 students got admission to IIITs and 36 students were selected for National Means- cum- Merit Scholarship (NMMS), under which they received `12,000 per annum from the 2017-18 academic year.Sports training in the school is also one of the reasons to attract new students. Several students from the school bagged medals in the state and national level competitions
Physical Director B Chandra Shekar said C Sowmya from the school represented India in an international handball tourney. B Bhavana, G Pravallika excelled in judo and K Shait, Manikanta excelled in swimming and cricket, respectively.
With the huge demand, the recommendations for admission are also increasing. At present, the school has a surplus of 400 students.The school, established in 1950, has 2,741 students now after the elementary section with 900 students was merged with it as part of the New Education Policy.Teachers say that though 324 class X students passed out this academic year, there is no chance of taking new admissions due to shortage of seats.
The biggest municipal school in the State, AKTP MCH School, which celebrated its diamond jubilee in 2011 on completing 60 years of its inception, has 54 (35+19) classrooms and 69 (55+14) teachers and has a total strength of 2741 (1841+ 900) English medium students for the 2022-23 academic year.
The school has a shortage of classrooms, which were sanctioned under the Nadu-Nedu scheme.
Adding to this there is a shortage of more than 14 teachers and one assistant headmaster. Surprisingly, there are no clerical staff (7 Nos) and computer operators (2 Nos) in such a big school. Speaking to TNIE, headmaster S Srinivasa Rao stated that the student intake has to be restricted due to lack of space. Proposals have been forwarded to demolish and reconstruct the main block which is in bad condition. “If the new building is constructed we can accommodate more students,” he said.