Keep a vigil on student attendance to bring down dropouts: CM YS Jagan

Vijayawada: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy stressed the need to keep a vigil over attendance in schools as the government has introduced various welfare schemes including Amma Vodi, Vidya Deevena and Vasathi Deevena aiming at bringing down the dropout rate.

At a review meeting of the Department held here on Monday, the Chief Minister told the officials that efficient tracking of the students' attendance using the synergy between the Education Department and the village/ward secretariats will help reduce the dropout rate. He gave his nod for the proposal for conducting certificate courses for teachers by the IIT Chennai in teaching methods for efficient implementation of subject-teacher concept and asked the officials to complete the printing of next year's Vidya Kanuka textbooks in advance. They told him that Vidya-Kanuka kits would be ready by May 15.

Officials informed the Chief Minister that certificate courses would be conducted for the teachers in the subjects of maths, physics and chemistry over the next two years to upgrade their teaching skills.

He also underlined the need to prepare e-content to make the students undergo TOEFL exams at primary and junior levels.

He said students should be made to undergo tests in reading, writing and listening to improve their skills and successful students should be given certificates.

While these exams should be conducted for students of third to fifth grade and sixth to tenth grade at the primary and junior levels respectively, teachers also should have preparedness, he suggested.

Officials told him that arrangements were being made to provide training to 1998 DSC candidates during this summer while steps were being taken to provide IFPs (Interactive Flat Panels) in classrooms by June. They also informed him about the details of distribution of tabs to the students of Class VIII and SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) developed to repair them besides the developmental works in progress under the second phase of Nadu-Nedu.

The Chief Minister asked the officials to have strict vigil over the implementation of midday meal scheme to ensure quality and recruit teachers to maintain the necessary student-teacher ratio through periodical review.

So far, 1,000 government schools have been granted CBSE affiliation while steps are underway to get the same for the remaining schools, they told him, assuring that foolproof arrangements were made for conducting Intermediate examinations strictly without scope for leakage of question papers in a similar manner as that of the tenth class examinations.

Education Minister B Satyanarayana, Chief Secretary Dr K S Jawahar Reddy, Advisor to Government (Education) A Sambasiva Reddy, Principal Secretary (Education) Praveen Prakash, School Education Commissioner S Suresh Kumar, Intermediate Education Commissioner M V Seshagiri Babu, Education Commissioner (basic infrastructure) K Bhaskar, SSD Project Director B Srinivasulu, Midday Meals Director Nidhi Meena, APEWIDC MD CN Deewan Reddy, Nadu-Nedu Technical Director Manohar Reddy, NCERT Director Pratap Reddy and other officials were present.