Fate of schools with too few students to be decided soon
The government ideally wants to shut down unviable schools to save on money and manpower
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2015-05-25 01:33 GMT
Hyderabad: With the new academic year about to begin, the Telangana state government is again in a dilemma over whether it should shut down government schools with low enrolment or not. As per rough estimates, there are more than 3,000 low enrolment schools in the state, which are unviable and, therefore, their students should be shifted to the nearest schools.
Telangana state Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had also remarked that such schools are unviable, but he had not given a clear direction whether or not they should be shut down. Telangana state government is likely to take a final decision this week. The Telangana state government had, in last September, issued orders to close down low enrolment government schools.
High schools with enrolment of fewer than 75 students and primary schools with fewer than 20 students were to be shut down. But the order met with severe criticism and backlash forcing the government to do a rethink. Then education minister G. Jagdish Reddy did a U-turn and said no school would be closed down. But discussions over this issue have picked up pace again in the past few weeks.
The government ideally wants to shut down unviable schools to save on money and manpower. But it is wary of the reaction from government teachers. The government has tried to avoid any run-ins with the teachers over the last few months.
“It may not be possible to go for rationalisation of schools considering it is risky move and there is a fear of intense backlash by teachers,” sources in the Telangana state education ministry informed.