HYDERABAD: Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Friday revealed plans to introduce Nursery, LKG and UKG in government schools from the next academic year.

Participating in the inauguration ceremony of MLC AVN Reddy’s AVN Lakefield Global School in Ibrahmipatnam, the chief minister said that the parents were unwilling to send their children to government schools after completion of Nursery, LKG and UKG in private schools. “If government schools start Nursery, LKG and UKG classes, then parents will have an option to send their wards to those schools,” he said.

The chief minister said that in some government schools, there are nine teachers with a student strength of just five.

“There are 26,000 government schools in the state, in which over 18 lakh students are studying. On the other hand, there are 11,000 private schools, where a total of 33 lakh children are studying,” he said, while calling upon the people’s representatives, cutting across party lines, to ponder over the issue.

“Improving the quality of education in government schools is my primary objective,” he said.

The chief minister further said that this year, his government would start 100 Young India Integrated Residential Schools, offering Nursery to SSC classes.

Revanth also announced the government’s plan to ‘integrate and rationalise’ the government schools based on their strength as some schools have students without teachers and others teachers without students.

He said that after the integration of schools, each class would have 30 students. In the first phase, schools in the Greater Hyderabad area, which had a 1.3 crore population, would be integrated and rationalised, the chief minister added.

“A school in Arutla in Rangareddy has already been rationalised and provided required number of teachers. After that, the school received 3,000 applications against its strength of 1,500 students, he said.

Union Minister G Kishan Reddy and others were present on the occasion.