AP to start rural residential public schools

Hyderabad, Jun 2 (UNI) Rural residential public schools on par with Corporate schools will be started with Public-Private Partnership (PPP) from next academic year 2008-09 all over Andhra Pradesh.

To begin with two such schools will be started in each district.

This was decided at a review meeting held by Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, an official release said here today.

Dr Reddy said the main objective of establishing such schools was to provide top-of-the-grade Corporate type secondary school education in rural areas in the state.

Each school would have classes from sixth to 12th under CBSE syllabus and each class would have three sections. There would be only 40 students per section and thus the total students in each school would be around 840. The Chief Minister directed that admission would be restricted to students from rural areas alone.

Dr Reddy said ultimately, the aim of the state government was to upgrade all schools like ordinary residential schools, Social Welfare Residential Schools (SC, ST and BC welfare residential schools), Gurukulam Pathasalas and Kasturba Gandhi Schools to Corporate standards. Every student after the VI standard in the state should have access to Corporate level education in the next five years.

He said this was possible and the government would achieve this and the Rural Residential Public Schools in the PPP mode was a step towards that. He said the government effort in this regard would be supplemented by the semi-government organisations and private Corporate partnerships. He asked the Education department to prepare a master plan to provide Corporate school-level education to all the students in the state in the next five years.

Dr Reddy suggested to begin with institutions like TTD, Simhachalam, Kanakadurga, Vemulawada, Srisailam Devasthanams, A P Trnasco, Discoms, A P Genco, Singareni Collieries, APMDC, AP Tourism Development Corporations and APSRTC should be involved and later Corporates should be roped in. He directed that a meeting should be held after a week with these institutions to finalise an understanding to establish the Rural Residential Public Schools.

School Education Minister Damodaram Rajanarasimha, A P State Council of Higher Education Chairman K C Reddy, School Education Principal Secretary C B S Venkataramana, School Education Commissioner Balasubramaniam and other officials attended the meeting. UNI