Hyderabad: A group of 125 retired judges, educationists, writers, journalists and teachers wrote an open letter to chief minister A Revanth Reddy urging him to withdraw the proposal to rationalise govt schools across Telangana.The signatories cautioned that the exercise could have a telling impact on children from poor, Dalit and Adivasi families, particularly girls, by making schools inaccessible and increasing the risk of dropouts. They also argued that the move would run contrary to the spirit of the Right to Education Act.The rationalisation exercise seeks to bring down the number of govt schools across the state from 27,000 to 4,000 by closing down those which do not have a minimum number of students on its rolls, the signatories claimed.“As many as 8,769 out of Telangana’s 12,769 gram panchayats would be left without a single govt school should the Congress govt push ahead with its ‘rationalisation’ exercise,” the signatories said.The letter further alleged that the proposal contradicted the Congress’ election promise to strengthen public education, including reopening of around 6,000 schools that were closed by the previous BRS govt. It claimed that only 34% of children currently study in govt schools and attributed the decline to inadequate infrastructure, teacher shortages and weak monitoring.The signatories also pointed to vacancies in the education department, claiming 25 of the state’s 33 districts do not have regular district education officers (DEOs), while 612 of 633 mandals lack mandal education officers (MEOs). They urged the govt to conduct a comprehensive study before proceeding with any school reduction, fill vacant posts, strengthen infrastructure and introduce pre-primary sections in all govt schools.
