Recognising the importance of the role of parents and community engagement in the success of students, the School Education Department has initiated a novel programme titled ‘Coffee with the education assistant’.
As a part of this initiative, the Mandal Education Officers (MEOs) are encouraged to dedicate half a day to engage with each education assistant at the village and ward secretariats and explain to them various programmes launched by the government in the education sector and their benefits to the students.
School Education Principal Secretary Praveen Prakash cited the example of the MEO of Chittoor mandal Selvaraj, who has visited all 60 villages and ward secretariats under his purview and spent significant time with each of them, talking about the enormous benefits of the flagship programmes of the government. “This, in turn, will greatly help the students of Chittoor mandal,” said Mr. Praveen Prakash.
Referring to the school restructuring programme, as part of which high schools in Andhra Pradesh now start from Class 3, as opposed to the 6th grade in other States, he said all upper primary schools now had subject teacher posts.
During his recent visit to Anantapur district, he observed that the guidelines were not being followed fully. He said the situation called for proper coordination between the government school teachers and their counterparts in municipal and Zilla Parishad schools.
The Principal Secretary said the respective district Collectors should intervene to ensure that subject teachers were available in high schools, upper primary schools and primary schools, starting from the 3rd grade.
