Government to create over 700 posts for improving education at district level

Vijayawada: To strengthen the education system at the district and mandal level in the State, the School Education department is contemplating will create 666 posts of Mandal Education Officers, 49 posts of Deputy District Education Officer and 13 posts of DEOs posts.

The Zilla Parishad and Mandal Parishad schools play a very important role in education in rural areas. These schools are under the supervision of the District Education Officer (DEO). The DEOs have vast responsibilities of both academic and administration and supervision of Zila Parishad, mandal, government, aided and the private schools.

Joint Director of Education B Pratap Reddy recently discuss the creation of Mandal Education Officer posts with the school teachers union and explained the objective of the School Education department to strengthen the ZP schools and Mandal Parishad schools.

As part of the education strengthening process, 49 posts of Deputy Education Officers and 13 District Education Officers will be created. These MEOs, Dy DEOs and DEOs will supervise the schools and take initiative to develop the academic education in these schools.

Aduri Venkata Ratnam, president of the Andhra Pradesh Mandal Education Officers Association, said the School Education department is facing an acute shortage of Mandal Education Officers. Around 370 MEO posts have been lying vacant for a long time and mostly incharges are discharging the duties of the MEOs. He said MEOs play very important role in ground-level supervision of schools in the mandals and felt the creation of 666 MEOs posts will be beneficial to the schools and the students.

The State government is spending crores of rupees to develop infrastructure and facilities under the Nadu Nedu scheme. Every year one-third of the schools are developed and the whole process of development of infrastructure facilities may be completed in two years. Moreover, the government is also distributing uniforms, school bags, notebooks and shoes to the children studying in the government schools.

Now, the attention is shifted towards strict supervision of ZP and Mandal Parishad schools in the State with the creation of posts for effective supervision from mandal level to the district-level. The existing structure of officials from mandal level to the district level will supervise the government schools, aided schools, Gurukula schools and private schools under the supervision of the District Education Officer.