Residential schools in high demand

Students unable to get a seat opt for private institutions

Ever since the TS government started English medium government residential schools, parents have been rushing to get their wards admitted to these schools. If the child is denied a seat, they opt for a private English medium school instead of a government school where English is not being taught from KG.

The State has a capacity of over 40 lakh students to be accommodated in government schools, while the capacity of residential government schools is only 2.5 lakh students. With the introduction of English medium in residential government schools, the state government has created unwanted competition between the government schools and their residential schools while indirectly encouraging private education.

Meanwhile, the state government is being compelled to close down nearly 4,000 government schools under 'rationalisation of schools' based on the students' strength in the state. These would be merged with bigger schools nearby.

According to sources, the education department has identified nearly 475 schools with fewer than 10 students in primary classes in old Adilabad district alone.

The state government has set up 119 residential schools under the Mahatma Jyotirao Phule project and 170 minority residential schools. The schools do not recruit regular teaching and non-teaching staff. They take teachers on contract and outsource non-teaching services.

The government had introduced SUCCESS schools with English medium and later model schools and KGBV. But the teaching staff strength is low. Democratic Teachers Federation Adilabad general secretary, Bollaram Vrukodhar said the state government had first announced that it would recruit 20,000 government teacher posts through DSC. But the recruitment got delayed by nearly three years. The number of teachers' posts is now 8,000.

It is clear that the residential schools can't accommodate all students studying in the government schools. As an example, there are 1,400 students in the government school in Ichoda in Adilabad district. Teachers are now asking the government to develop government schools of zilla parishads and mandal with the same standard as residential schools.