Schools re-open in AP after summer vacation

Hyderabad,Jun 14: All the government schools in Andhra Pradesh reopened today after a nearly 45-day-long summer vacation with the government planning to improve the teaching standards in schools.Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K Rosaiah who would be launching the  'Badibata' (Way to School) Programme later today, said the State Government was spending huge funds on education, especially on school education. He mooted a six-point action Plan for teachers to achieve excellence in school education, particularly in Government Schools, which included constant monitoring of teachers and students' attendance, improving teaching standards, providing text books to all classes on the reopening day, making optimum use of programmes like SSA to improve the infrastructure facilities, besides putting an end to drop outs and ensure that teaching standards were on par with corporate schools. In a statement here, Mr Rosaiah said the state was also leveraging funds from the Central Government schemes like Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan (RMSA) for improving infrastructure facilities like school buildings, compound walls and recruitment of teachers, He expressed satisfaction that school and secondary education in the state of late had vastly improved, universalisation of elementary education had been achieved to a very large extent, and there was improvement in gross enrolment ratio, especially of girls and those belonging to the marginalised group. With the enactment of Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, it was expected that issues of drop-out, out-of-school children, quality of education and availability of trained teachers would be addressed in the short to medium term. Gender Parity at the elementary stage has improved appreciably. It is also a matter of satisfaction that Andhra Pradesh has attained 100 per cent access by providing at-least One Primary School within the reach of one km.A massive training programme for the School Assistants handling classes nine and ten for all Government and Local Body Schools was organised in Summer 2010 and 50,000 teachers trained with the main objective of improving quality in secondary schools, the release said.
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