The Telangana Congress accused the TRS government of shutting down more than 1,000 primary schools in Telangana every year ever since it came to power.
The Telangana Congress on Friday accused the TRS government of shutting down more than 1,000 primary schools in Telangana every year ever since it came to power.
Addressing a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Official Spokesperson Syed Nizamuddin alleged that the TRS government had completely ruined the public education system, especially the primary schools.
He said that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao was giving lot of hype to a few hundred residential schools, but hiding the fact that his government was shutting down thousands of primary schools on one pretext or the other.
"There were 28,822 government schools in 2013-2014 at the time of the creation of Telangana as a state. They got reduced to 26,040 in 2018-19. The TRS government is now planning to shut down 4,000 more schools. Can the government justify the permanent closure of these schools?" he asked.
Citing the latest report of the District Information System for Education (DSIE), Nizamuddin said that the enrollment in government schools had reduced by more than one lakh in just three years, but the enrollment in private schools had increased significantly. There were 22.87 lakh students in government schools in 2014-15, but the number reduced to 21.72 lakh in 2016-17, a decrease of 114,739. The official figures for 2017-18 and 2018-19 were not yet public and therefore the number of drop-outs could be much higher, he said.
Similarly, the enrollment in madrasas and unrecognised schools has come down from 69,082 in 2014-15 to 34,972 in 2016-17, a decrease of 34,110.
However, the enrollment in private schools during this period had increased by 47,631, Nizamuddin said.
"Even if we consider that some students might have joined private schools, as many as 101,218 students have gone missing from the primary education system," he said.
Nizamuddin questioned the silence of the TRS government on the missing of more than 1 lakh students from the education system. He also claimed that the rise in enrollment in private schools was due to the closure of government schools.
The Congress leader pointed out that in 2015-16, the Telangana government was rapped by the Supreme Court for zero enrollment in 398 primary schools. There were also just 1-10 students in 980 schools and only 11-20 students in 2,333.
"Instead of improving the conditions in the government schools to increase enrollment, the TRS government is trying to use the SC remarks in a twisted way and planning to close down more than 4,000 schools citing low enrollment as the reason," he said.
"The TRS came to power on the promise of providing free "KG-to-PG" education. However, by shutting down thousands of primary schools, KCR is cutting down the very first step, KG, for poor students to rising to the PG level," he said.
Nizamuddin demanded that the State government take immediate steps to stop the closure of existing schools and measures on a war footing to revive the closed schools. He said that the Congress would not tolerate the dismantling of the public education system by the TRS.
Hyderabad City Congress Committee (Minorities Department) Chairman Sameer Waliullah was also present at the press conference.