Adimulapu Suresh, Andhra Pradesh's Education Minister has made it clear that the state government is not forcing any aided educational institutions to merge with the government. Speaking at Badvel, Kadapa district, Suresh said that Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has set up a committee to assess the performance of private aided schools and some decisions were taken based on the report of the committee for the development of educational institutions.
In their study, the committee members also verified the institution's teacher-pupil ratio (TPR) and made suggestions to raise the quality standards and improve the infrastructure in them through the Nadu-Nedu program being implemented in public schools.
The report revealed how aided schools are completely defunct in some places due to lack of teachers or students. Elsewhere, some schools are in trouble due to ownership disputes and a lack of consensus between teachers and employers. Also, due to a lack of infrastructure in some areas, students are not able to attend those schools. Considering all these factors, the committee submitted its report to the government, he said.
The minister further said, "In case the private educational institutions are willing to. hand over the schools to the government for better management, we are ready to improve the Infrastructure under the Nadu-Nedu programme and fill up the teaching vacancies to ensure better education for the students.".
Refuting the allegations of the opposition and a section of media on aided schools, Suresh clarified that the state government is not taking over any aided school forcibly and said that any private educational institution can take back the school if they wanted to run it on their own.
More than 137 degree colleges have responded positively of which managements of seven colleges have agreed on paper that they are willing to give up the staff along with the properties of the colleges, 124 colleges have accepted to surrender only staff, not the property and run them as private colleges. He said out of 122 junior colleges, five junior colleges have opted to surrender properties along with staff, 103 junior colleges opted to surrender staff. When it comes to schools 1,200 out of 1,988 have agreed on paper to surrender the staff and 88 schools opted to surrender properties along with staff.
The Minister further said that the Education Department has prepared a time table to map the students of schools that are going to close and added that the online counselling on postings for these teachers will be conducted by the end of this month.
