Schools have been closed in Andhra Pradesh since March this year, as the state saw a surge in COVID-19 cases.
The Andhra Pradesh government on Friday decided to reopen schools on August 16. Speaking to reporters, state Education Minister Adimulapu Suresh said that schools would follow COVID-19 safety protocol and the National Education Policy (NEP) will be implemented. Briefing the media after a cabinet meeting led by Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, Information and Public Relations Minister Perni Venkatramaiah said that the cabinet approved proposals for transforming educational infrastructure and to bring in comprehensive academic and administrative reforms.
With this move, the Andhra government is hoping to conduct physical classes for the 2021-22 academic year. A press note from the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) said that over 15,000 schools in the state, including those in remote places, were given an infrastructure boost. At the meeting on Friday, where senior officials of the education department were also present, the Chief Minister said that the medium of instruction will be in English from the Anganwadi level itself.
All schools including Anganwadi centers, Zilla Parishad Schools, Municipal and Tribal welfare schools are expected to be classified into six categories, as per the NEP. Existing Anganwadis would be converted into satellite foundation schools (PP1 and PP2), followed by foundational schools (PP1, PP2, classes 1 and 2), foundation school plus ( PP1, PP2, Classes 1-5), pre-high school (Classes 3-7/8), high school (Classes 3-10) and high school plus (Classes 3-12). Textbooks are being printed in English and Telugu. The press note from the CMO also said that the state government has decided to spend Rs 16,000 crore to implement the NEP-2020.
Schools have been closed in Andhra Pradesh since March this year, as the state saw a surge in COVID-19 cases. On Friday, the state government also declared the results of Class 10 board exams of 2021 batch students, besides issuing the marks memo with grades for the academic years 2019-2020 and 2020 -2021. Teachers have been going to school on alternate days from the beginning of July. In Andhra, following the first wave, schools had reopened in a phased manner. In November, classes 9 and 10 began and gradually, a few months later, in January and February, classes commenced for the other classes.
