Hyderabad, June 13: Chief Minister K Rosaiah today directed the School Education department to take steps to reduce the dropout rate from this academic year.
Reviewing the department affairs here ahead of re-opening of schools in the state from Monday, Rosaiah asked the authorities concerned to closely monitor attendance of students as well as of teachers and ensure ‘Parent-Teacher Committees’ in each school function effectively.
‘With Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, it is expected that issues of dropouts, out-of-school children, quality of education and availability of trained teachers will be addressed in the short to medium term,’’ Rosaiah said.
Steps were being taken for filling 30,704 secondary-grade teacher posts based on the recommendations of a Cabinet sub-committee. “This should improve quality of education in government schools and also those run by local bodies,’’ he added. Rosaiah directed the authorities to judiciously utilise funds under Rajiv Vidya Mission, Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyan and other schemes for improving infrastructure in schools.
Information and Communication Technology was introduced in 5,000 schools in the state in 2008-09 while it would be introduced in another 1,300 schools in the current academic year at a cost of Rs 460 crore.
The chief minister expressed satisfaction that school and secondary education in the State, of late had been vastly improved, universalisation of elementary education had been achieved to a large extent, especially in terms of access to schooling and improvement in gross enrolment ratio, especially of girls and those belonging to the marginalised groups.
As far as textbooks distribution was concerned, 5.09 crore text books were dispatched to district points which was 100.38 per cent of the requirement for the 2010-2011 academic year, officials informed him. Instructions were issued to the District Educational Officers to ensure that the textbooks were distributed to the students on the reopening day itself.
The chief minister enquired about the action being taken to set up Model Schools one each in 737 mandals on the lines of Kendriya Vidyalayas under CSS sharing pattern with the objective of improving the quality of secondary education. Officials explained to the chief minister that under the 12th Finance Commission, maintenance of high school buildings had been taken up with an estimated cost of Rs 52.55 crore and construction of new school buildings had been taken up in 1,176 high schools with an estimated cost of Rs 303 crore with the assistance of RIDF-11 and NABARD.
——–Agencies