Tirupati: Mandal panels soon to monitor fee structure in schools

Tirupati: The AP School Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission (APSERMC) has been trying to visit the schools across the state to take stock of the ground realities pertaining to school education. The commission could not visit many schools during the past two years because of the prevailing pandemic situation. As the schools were reopened now, it intends to intensify their mission to further strengthen the government's policy directives.

Speaking to The Hans India on the sidelines of her visit to some schools in Tirupati, the vice-chairperson of APSERMC Dr A Vijaya Sarada Reddy said that the field visits will help them understand the grey areas, if any, on which they can make suggestions to the government.

She said that they have worked on bringing out fee regulatory GOs recently though they were challenged in the court. They were contemplating to appoint mandal level committees for fee regulation. They will be asked to monitor the fee being collected by different schools, whether they displayed the fee structure at the schools among other things.

"The intention of APSERMC is to ensure that the system should run as per government's intentions and the policy framework. As such, we have been monitoring the learning quality of the students, teaching standards, whether the government schemes are being implemented as per guidelines etc.," she maintained.

Elaborating further, she said that they will focus on the Nadu-Nedu works and how all the nine infrastructure components were taken up under the scheme. Also, the quality of Jagananna Vidya Kanuka will be taken care of and the implementation of Amma Vodi scheme apart from others.

Dr Vijaya Sarada said that 90 per cent of Nadu-Nedu works were completed satisfactorily in the first phase though 10 per cent problems may persist here and there. Due to technical glitches some works were not completed for which there may be various reasons. During the commission's visit, they will assess the problems if any and suggest correcting steps to the government so that the flagship scheme should be 100 per cent successful.

For example, in Vijayawada, a water purifier has stopped working within a few days of installation. The headmaster was asked to take up the matter to the agency to avail one year warranty and if it fails to respond, the DEO will take further action in this regard. She said that the commission will take care of the service conditions of school teachers, especially those working in private schools.