GUNTUR: Nearly 400 government schools are on the verge of closure due to rationalisation in Guntur district. The public are demanding the government to make “study in government schools” mandatory to all for the protection of state schools from closure. The government decided to merge schools with low admission into the nearby schools which is going to close three high schools, 105 upper primary schools and 208 primary schools in Guntur district.
The public are demanding cancellation of schools closure decision as it would restrain the students from getting education.According to reports, as many as 3,778 primary schools, 2,384 upper primary schools and 80 high schools run by the government would be closed due to rationalisation in 13 districts of AP. Progressive Democratic Students Union state secretary U. Gani Raju lamented that the government every year conducts campaign to restrain school dropouts and strangely now decided to close the schools which would increase dropout rate. He said that already dropouts are continuing despite availability of the government schools and this menace would largely increase if the government schools shut their shutters.
He said that majority students studying in the government-run schools from primary level to high school level belong to SC, ST, BC, EBC and minority communities and closure of schools would restrain them from getting education. He claimed that these suppressed communities of the society cannot afford the corporate studies and demanded cancellation of GO 29 issued for the closure of schools.
Parents K. Giridhar and others said that majority of the parents of students studying in the government schools belong to working class and they work in chilli yard, cotton mills, edible oil mills, cement industries and other manufacturing units. They lamented that they are unable to pay fees of private/corporate schools to provide study to their children and sought continuation of government-run schools by cancelling the decision.
