Vijayawada: State govt has decided to drop the crimi nal cases registered against school teachers during protests against the previous YSRCP regime. IT and HRD minister Nara Lokesh told the assembly on Friday that the NDA govt will not take any decision that could trouble school teachers.
“We will protect their dignity, rights and status in society..We will soon drop all cases booked against the teachers during the previous regime,” said Lokesh.
He said the previous govt harassed and tortured teachers by making them handle menial work.
“I assure this House that supervising cleaning of toilets and classrooms is not the job of a schoolteacher. We have already removed the apps related to supervisory duties. School teachers will be confined only to teaching job and nothing else,” said Lokesh amidst applause in the assembly.
He further said that the govt also plans to create a separate wing to look after the infrastructure needs in schools. We will take a call on the issue after studying the prevailing systems in other states, he added.
Lokesh said they have already initiated measures to fill vacant teacher posts in the state by completing the TET. “The govt hopes to fill all vacancies by the commencement of next academic year. We wanted to issue notification in a foolproof manner to avoid legal litigations in view of the series of cases filed against previous notifications. The file regarding relaxation of age limit for DSC candidates is with the chief minister and notification would be issued after getting clearance from the CM,” he said.
He informed the assembly that school teacher vacancies were filled through 15 DSCs since 1994 and all the notifications were issued when TDP was in power in the state. “About 1.8 lakh out of the total 2.2 lakh teachers in the state were recruited during the TDP regime in the last 30 years,” he said, and promised to look into the implications of GO 117 issued by the previous govt to merge committee schools with govt schools and come up with a suitable alternative. He also promised to bring revolutionary reforms in school education to provide quality education to students. About 6 lakh students dropped out of schools due to mindless decisions taken by the previous regime, he alleged.
