Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy has said that 60,000 teachers would be recruited by the State government this year as part of efforts to strengthen school education system.
The recruitment would be in two phases for 30,000 teachers each before June and December, Mr. Reddy told a meeting here on Saturday on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of M. Venkatarangaiya foundation which is involved in child labour eradication. A large number of boys and girls who were in the camps of the foundation in the past attended the meeting which was held under the banner ‘alumni meet'.
Mr. Reddy deplored the lack of matching effort from children though the government put in place a huge infrastructure to meet their educational needs.
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The students did not show the commitment to studies which was evident from the poor percentage of pass by beneficiaries of tuition fee reimbursement and scholarships, mostly in engineering colleges. Their pass percentage was only 28, he added.
He also said the government extended the benefit of fee reimbursement and scholarships in professional colleges to 27 lakh students.
Emphasising that the government faced two challenges – ensuring cent per cent enrolment of children in schools and quality education – Mr. Reddy said efforts were made to address both of them. The government fixed a target of enrolling 1.25 lakh left-out children in schools this year and ended up with a shortage of 30,000. A staggering Rs.3,000 crore was spent on improvement of education in government schools.
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Shanta Sinha, chairperson, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, said one million unfortunate children were brought into the mainstream by the foundation so far. They only required a ray of hope after which they struggled to come up in life. Poverty alleviation required that children did not work but went to school. John Hogan, chief operating officer of US-based Broadbridge Financial Solutions, quoted a girl child as telling him “you bring money, I will bring more children” during one of his visits to a school supported by the foundation. . He said his company was involved in improving lives of people in various countries. G. Malleswari, an ex-student at a camp run by the foundation, said she was a bonded labourer until she joined the camp. She became a camera crew member of a TV channel after that.