9,770 schools likely to be merged in high schools

Kakinada: More than 9,771 primary schools and few upper primary schools have been mapped for merging into high schools within a radius of one kilometre in the State. However, the process of merging the schools has not been started as no official instructions received from the government.

The district-level educational officials have proposed to merge these schools based on the oral instructions of the education department. Headmasters of primary schools are uncertain whether they can enrol new students and continue the existing students in the schools.

According to the Central government guidelines, primary schools within a radius of 3 km should be merged with the nearest high schools. But during the discussions, the representatives of teachers' unions strongly objected to the proposal. Then the State government officials promised the unions that the schools will be merged into high schools within a radius of 500 to 720 mts. They have also exempted the merger of schools where there are natural barriers such as crossing highways, railway tracks, canals and rivers.

But the teachers' union leaders alleged that the officials compromised on the radius of 1 km besides including natural barriers in the present mapping of schools' merger.

They are worried that the quality and standards of education may drastically fall as students' strength in high schools increases abnormally with merging of schools and it will be difficult for teachers to teach students.

At present, the teacher and student ratio is 1:40. But after the merger, the ratio can cross 1:53. It will result in great pressure on the teachers.

Following the oral instructions of Education department officials, the DEOs got ready for mapping of school mergers. Recently, DEOs advised headmasters of the listed primary schools to handover records including enrolment registers to the respective high school headmasters.

Speaking with The Hans India, Andhra Pradesh United Teachers Federation (UTF) leader Thotakura Chakravarthi said that about 1,100 primary schools are likely to be merged with the nearby high schools in Kakinada district. He noted that problems may arise due to haphazard mingling of students of 3, 4 and 5th classes with high school students.

Another great anomaly is that as both Telugu and English medium students should sit together, a great burden will fall upon the teacher, who has to handle a bilingual situation. With this, Chakravarthi said, naturally quality of education and instruction will be affected.

Moreover, lack of space poses another major problem to students to sit together. Mapping of merged schools is complete, but the government is yet to issue an instruction to the schools in writing, he added.

In a circular released on July 5 to Regional Joint Director of School education and district educational officers in the State, Commissioner of School Education S Suresh Kumar informed that the government has taken the decision to establish junior colleges exclusively for girls in every mandal in the State. He advised the officials to take necessary action for upgrading 328 KGBVs as full-fledged high school Plus. He instructed the DEOs to submit the proposal for upgradation of high schools in the mandals of the state into High School Plus for Girls.

District Education Officer Datla Subhadra told The Hans India that there is no clarity on the merging of schools and no instruction so far. She said that the government may give clear instructions soon.