Leaders of the Andhra Pradesh Teachers’ Federation (APTF) have raised concerns over the government’s proposed school restructuring programme as part of reforms in the education sector.
The executive committee of the federation, which met in virtual mode on Sunday, passed resolutions after discussing key issues.
The leaders demanded that the proposed pre-primary classes should be linked to the primary schools and Anganwadi workers should be given adequate training before starting these new institutions. Trained teachers should be appointed to teach the preparatory class meant for children above five years.
They reiterated their plea to drop the proposed division of the primary classes and said that making children of Classes 1 to 5 travel a distance of more than 1 km would violate the terms of the Right to Education Act.
They said upper primary schools with 75 students in the 6, 7, and 8 Classes should be upgraded as high schools. Primary schools should continue to have Telugu as a medium of instruction and in high schools, students should be given the freedom of choice on the medium of instruction. Plus Two education should be included in the high schools with a strength of 400 students from Class 6 to Class 10 and sanction a post of headmaster in every primary school.
They also demanded immediate steps to fill the vacant teacher posts and make representatives of teacher unions, intellectuals, educationists and MLCs part of the discussions on the changes the government proposed to introduce in the school education sector.
