No TS govt policy yet on English medium 

The District Educational Officer (DEO) of Medak district told The Hans India that there are as many as 100 schools offering education only in English medium. The school in Vellanki village in Ramannapet mandal of Nalgonda district had only 88 students in 2010 when there was only Telugu medium. The strength was fast dwindling. But, the strength has now increased to 150 after shifting to English medium, said Rama Rao, a local teacher.

There are instances of even villagers swearing not to send their children to private schools to strengthen the village government school. One such village is Pendapally in Bhainsa mandal of Adilabad where English medium is a parallel section. N Narayana, general secretary of the Telangana People’s Education Reforms Movement (TPERM) urged the government to come out with a policy to start parallel English medium sections and recruit exclusive teachers in view of the growing urge among even poor parents.

Meanwhile, the Director of School Education issued instructions to all DEOs to submit a list of such schools where English medium sections are already running for providing facilities. Yet, the State government has no policy on starting English medium sections either exclusive or parallel in government-run primary and upper primary schools. All these schools have been running English medium sections without prior permission. As per rules 6, 7 and 8 of G.O.MS. No. 524 of 1988 permission from competent authorities is compulsory.

The Director School Education earlier issued proceedings warning action against those schools starting English medium sections without prior permission. As these proceedings caused alarm, the authorities through a rejoinder clarified that no orders were issued to close down the existing English medium sections. However, the clarity still eludes regarding the government policy on English medium education creating undesirable confusion among teachers, students and parents.