Justifying the crackdown, HRD Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao said rules have been there and a beginning has to be made to clean up things. “We cannot allow the schools to function without fulfilling basic norms and we cannot compromise on the safety of the students,” he said.
Faulting the DEOs, he went ahead to add that it was ‘criminal negligence’ on part of the DEOs to allow the schools to function.
“We do not have any soft corner for the corporate schools and have enforced the norms on corporate schools such as Narayana and Chaitanya also, but we are hell bent on improving the status of the government schools to address the needs of education for all segments, and that is why we are pumping in about Rs. 21,500 crore every year in the school education segment,” the HRD Minister said
To improve the education in government schools we have recently recruited 10,000 teachers. We have chosen the best from the 4-lakh-odd who have written the test. The idea is to have good teachers in the classrooms and not having air-conditioned classrooms with bad teachers. We agree that the infrastructure is to be developed, but the beginning has been made, said Mr. Srinivasa Rao.
Not only schools the task force have cracked down on schools buses also. Of the 21,500 school buses in the State, only about 7,000 are fit to run.
