Andhra Pradesh government formulating strategy for reopening of schools

Ongole: With the lessons learnt and experiences from the prolonged lockdown, the State government would make arrangements for the reopening of the schools, announced Education Minister Dr Audimulapu Suresh.

In an exclusive interview to The Hans India, Suresh explained that they were holding brainstorming sessions on the possibilities of running the schools while protecting the health and ensuring safety of the students and staff.

Suresh said that the Education Department officials and experts were discussing various models like the introduction of shift system for schools or limiting the class work to two days in a week for pre-KG to Class III students and three days a week for Class IV to Class VIII students, or designing a seating arrangement to maintain physical distance, reducing sports activity, utilising the online class system for a few subjects, etc.

He advised the parents to teach the children to wear masks, use sanitisers and not spend more time in public places. He said that the government will focus on creating awareness on the precautions to be taken to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and to reduce holidays to compensate for the loss of working days in schools.

He assured that they would start the academic year by implementing a protective methodology to assure the safety of the students, staff and parents. He requested the stakeholders to understand that life will not be the same as it was before Covid-19 and make use of it.

The Minister said that the government was providing better infrastructure in government schools than the private schools under Naadu-Nedu programme. He said that the government was mulling providing the educational content to the students via television, radio, and the internet as they cannot spend more time in schools.

Though there has been a significant improvement in facilities in schools, he agreed that a majority of students in the government schools are from poor families and they cannot have the facilities to learn from the online education apps and websites.

He said that they may use the village secretariat or ward secretariat or any other nearest access point to attend online classes.

Responding over the fate of SGT candidates of DSC 2008 and 2018, the Minister said that the recruitment process cannot be continued as there were many court cases pending. He said that YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government was giving priority to education, health and agriculture in the State and would continue it in the future also.

He thanked the people for extending full support to the State government.