To improve the functioning of approximately 15,000 English-medium government-run primary and upper primary schools across 75 districts, the Uttar Pradesh Education authorities have taken the initiative to learn a few management tips from Andhra Pradesh. 

All 44,512 government primary and upper primary schools in Andhra Pradesh had been turned into English-medium schools about three years ago. A two-member team of Prayagraj-based English Language Teaching Institute (ELTI), UP, had recently toured two AP districts — NTR and Krishna — to study the schools and teachers' training procedures in Andhra Pradesh. 

In compliance with the directives of the Director General of School Education in Uttar Pradesh, Vijay Kiran Anand, the team will now submit its report with suggestions over effective interventions for UP schools, said State Education Department officials. The two-member team, comprising ELTI Principal Skand Shukla and lecturer Kuldeep Pandey, visited over half-a-dozen schools situated in the rural areas of Vijaywada in the NTR district and Krishna district. They also visited Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya along with the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) of Andhra Pradesh in the first week of August 2022. 

According to Shukla, besides having bilingual course books in Telugu and English, the configuration of Andhra schools is different from UP. In AP, the schools are structured as Classes I to V and Classes VI to X, whereas in UP, the schools are structured as Classes I to V and Classes VI to VIII at the Primary and Upper Primary levels, respectively. 

In AP, students undergo formative assessment every two months and summative assessment once every six months. On the contrary, in UP, the students are assessed twice a year through six monthly exams and final exams. As per Shukla, in AP, the teachers' strength in every school is determined every year and is based on the number of students. The selection of teachers is subject-wise for Classes VI to X. 

The transfer and postings of the teachers are completely online, without any manual intervention, leaving no scope for corruption. For students of Classes I to V, Smart TVs and interactive panels are proposed with teachers trained in both cascade and online modes of teaching, shared Shukla. 

In AP, an initiative called the 'Nadu-Nedu' model is being adopted to strengthen infrastructure and transform the existing infrastructure of the schools in mission mode over a period of three years, starting from 2019-20. The Nadu-Nedu model focuses on nine infrastructure components — toilets with running water, drinking water supply, major and minor repairs besides electrification with fans and tube lights, furniture for students and staff, green chalkboards, and painting of school buildings, English labs and construction of compound walls. 

The project covers all 44,512 AP schools, including residential schools and those run by different departments including school education, panchayat raj, municipal administration, social welfare, backward class welfare, tribal welfare, minority welfare, juvenile welfare and fisheries department.