CM to teachers: Work in tandem with govt to build strong, prosperous State

Hyderabad: Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy called upon the government school teachers to join hands with the State government's mission to reconstruct and build a strong Telangana for the future.

Addressing a gathering of teachers from 30,000 government schools attended in LB Stadium for an ‘Atmiya Sammelan’ organised by the State government on Friday, he laid down sharing the thoughts of his government and how it wanted to go about for a prosperous Telangana, giving top priority to education as it is the bedrock to achieve that goal.

The Chief Minister recalled the key role played by teachers in the creation of a separate Telangana state. Everyone expected teachers to get the respect they deserved and that the education sector would improve in the new state. However, they had received insults and humiliations at the hands of the previous regime in the past 10 years, he alleged.

Revanth Reddy highlighted that there are 30,000 government schools and 10,000 private schools in the state. While 26 lakh students study in government schools, about 33 lakh study in private schools. Teachers in government schools are more educated, with higher qualifications than teachers in private schools. “However, last year the number of enrollments in the government schools fell by 2 lakh. This shows there is a fault line from the government side for not providing basic amenities. The situation of teachers and employees in the past 10 years was worse than in the United Andhra Pradesh. However, he stressed that parents belonging to the poor, Dalits, STs, minorities and other privileged reposing faith in the teachers are sending their children to government schools. To keep up that trust, he said that the state government wanted to allocate 10 per cent of the total budget to the education sector. But the commitments on other issues forced the government to provide 7.3 per cent of the budget, i.e., 21,000 crore to education,” he said.

Further, "I was advised against taking up the long pending issues of teachers like promotions and transfers. As doing it would be disturbing a beehive." However, the state government wanted to restore the faith and trust of teachers in the government. It was decided to ensure they paid salaries on the first day of every month and take up promotions pending for more than two decades and transfers for more than 13 years.

"Mine is a people's government and it listens to you, addresses and tries to resolve them," the Chief Minister said, adding, "you can go home taking your salary and need not spend a single rupee for paying from your pockets for anyone to clean the school premises. The State government has allocated Rs 73 crore for Self-help groups forming Amma Adharsha School Committees to look after the same. In turn, all that the government wants is teachers to work hard to improve the credibility of the government schools and make parents take pride in sending their children to the government schools.” The CM noted about providing free electricity and steps taken to improve the basic amenities in the schools.

Apart from education, he insisted that sports play a crucial role in the holistic development of students. For this, the government is coming up with a sports policy to build mini-stadiums in the mandals to encourage sports. Similarly, to address the skill gap to make students employable, the Chief Minister highlighted his government's initiatives of transforming 65 ITIs into Advanced Technology Centers (ATCs) to train students in relevant skills and the Young India Skill University established to provide training in 17 futuristic employable skills roping in the industry partnerships.

Revanth Reddy expressed concern over the disturbing trend of young school children getting addicted to ganja and drugs, and highlighted that his government is acting with an iron hand to curb the menace. He appealed to the teachers to contribute their might in providing a good education to the students as well as preventing them from walking this dangerous path.