Education Minister Adimulapu Suresh has requested the Centre to drop the proposal to shift the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) Centre of Excellence (CoE) from Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to Chennai.
In a letter addressed to the Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, Mr. Suresh wanted the Central government to direct the Chairman, CBSE, New Delhi, to cancel the orders of shifting of the CoE to Chennai and withdraw the transfer order of the staff. “The move will hamper the efforts to introduce the CBSE syllabus in all schools in the State,” said Mr. Suresh.
Established in 2014, the CBSE Centre of Excellence conducts 20 classes every month for a batch of 50 teachers from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, thus helping raise the standards of 1,000 teachers.
A similar move in the past to shift the centre to either Chennai or Bengaluru was stalled by the timely intervention of the Central Education Department. The reason being given for the proposed shift of the centre is that there is no air connectivity for the Delhi officers to reach Kakinada.
“Andhra Pradesh is in the forefront in bringing in reforms in the education sector with an aim to raise the quality of teaching and make education accessible to all. The State government has taken a policy decision to introduce CBSE syllabus in all schools from the 2021-22 academic year,” the Minister pointed out.
Training of teachers
A delegation of officials from the State School Education Department recently met the CBSE authorities in New Delhi and discussed the modalities and sought their cooperation to introduce the CBSE syllabus in the government schools in Andhra Pradesh. At this juncture, the retention of CoE is a dire need for training the teachers, the Minister said.
