Girls, BPL boys to get free school uniforms

Chief Minister K Rosaiah on Monday approved the proposal for free uniforms for all girl students and Below Poverty Line Boys in all the Government Schools in the State. The Central and the State Governments will share the expenditure of Rs 210 crore towards the scheme under 65:35 ratio till 2015 and later the State Government will have to bear the entire expenditure.  

This will benefit over 52 lakh students in the State. The Chief Minister who positively responded to the Primary Education Department's proposal said that it will also help the weavers, tailors, APCO, SETWIN and generate employment.

The Centre also accepted the suggestion of Chief Minister to raise the ratio of funding pattern from 55:45 to 65:35 for all SSA projects and schemes and programmes for implementing Right To Education Act.  The Chief Minister thanked the Centre for the favourable decision.

The Chief Minister today held a review meeting on the functioning of the issues of Primary Education, SSA, Adult Education departments with Minister and officials at Secretariat. The Chief Minister directed the department to take a final decision on introducing English as a subject from 1st Class onwards in the decision. It is a long pending proposal. He also wanted the Right To Education Act to be strictly implemented in the State and see that no child is left out of school in the State.

Officials informed the Chief Minister that proposals have been approved in supplementary plan to implement the provisions of RTE Act during 2010-11 with an outlay of Rs 500.00 crore.  Providing Uniforms to 52 lakh children studying in Government Schools with a budget of Rs 210 crore; Construction of 5,889 additional classrooms with an estimated cost of Rs 235 crore; Providing Furniture to 1,137 Mandal Resource Centres and 6,973 School Complexes at Rs 18crore; Positioning 4,998 School Complex Coordinators; Engaging Data Entry Operator, MIS Coordinator and Accountant cum support staff to all Mandal Resource Centres; Positioning 2,927 part time Teachers in Upper Primary Schools to teach Art, Physical and work education etc under the new funding pattern of 65:35 between Central and State Government. 

Meanwhile, orders have been issued by the Department to fill up the vacancies of DIET Lecturers with the qualified teachers on deputation basis temporarily till the unified rules are finalized and total backlog share has been cleared by Finance Dept. by releasing an amount of Rs 403 crore. Officials apprised the Chief Minister that out of 50,156 Schools which do not have power connections, 33,564 schools have been provided with Electricity; Children's help lines established at selected Railway Stations and major Bus stations to track street children without adult protection and put them in transit homes; Mobile Science Labs have been operationalised in all the Districts to demonstrate important scientific experiments to the Children; 4 Transit homes have been established in Hyderabad to enrol Street, Migrant and Homeless Children.

The officials said monthly implementation plan has been prepared to complete all the approved activities by the end of the financial year; 31 Work-site schools have been established in the outskirts of Hyderabad city for the education of migrant children. 61,014 Vidya Volunteers have been positioned in all Primary and Upper Primary Schools in the vacancies of Teachers to ensure proper Teacher Learning Process; RTE rules finalised; Internal audit of all district units, sub district units like BRCs, School Complexes and head office completed by 31st March 2010.

The Chief Minister congratulated the Primary Education Department since Andhra Pradesh was declared as the No 1 State in the country which completed Statutory Audit well before the appointed time; Auditors Report for 2009-10 submitted to MHRD.

The Chief Minister also asked the Department to complete the rationalisation of teachers as per the new norms at the earliest. As per RTE Act 2009, Teacher Pupil Ratio has to be maintained in all primary and upper-primary schools @ 1:30 and 1:35 respectively; Out of 76,503 primary schools/sections 30,440 (39.78 per cent schools/sections have less teachers, where as 10,606 (13.86 per cent schools/sections have excess teachers i.e more than the requirement.  The remaining 35,457 (46.36 per cent schools have TPR as per RTE and need to rationalize teachers as per RTE Act.

Meanwhile, the Centre has sanctioned the Shakshar Bharat Programme to Adilabad district on October 11; the Centre sanctioned Literacy Programme to cover 75.95 lakh non-literates up to 2012 and in the first phase, it is proposed to take up 37.98 lakh of non-literates. The Andhra Pradesh State Literacy Mission Authority, Hyderabad has been awarded the National Literacy Award "Satyen Maitra Memorial Literacy Award 2010" for its excellent performance in Literacy and Andhra Pradesh had bagged highest number of Awards like APSLMA, State Resource Centre for Adult Education, Hyderabad and Jan Siksha Sansthan, Guntur.

With a vision to provide ample access to sustainable learner centric quality school education coupled with skill up-gradation through vocational training, the Government of Andhra Pradesh have permitted the Andhra Pradesh Open School Society (APOSS) to introduce SSC level course through Open and Distance Learning (ODL) mode, duly removing the inadequacies in the old pattern of study, from the academic year 2008-09. 58,103 Learners enrolled  for 2008-09; and 45,189  Learners enrolled  for  2009-10 and 76,527 learners enrolled  for the year 2010-11.

Minister for School Education Mohamed Ahmedullah, Special Chief Secretary, Primary Education Chandana Khan, State Project Director, SSA Mohd. Ali Rafat, Adviser Kondal Rao, Principal Secretary, Finance LV Subramaniam and other officials attended the meeting.