Schools in the State will not reopen on July 1 (Thursday) as planned earlier, in view of the prevailing pandemic.
“Children will not be able to attend school as the conditions are still not conducive. But teachers will attend in staggered shifts to be part of the training sessions in capacity-building and to coordinate programmes like Mana-Badi Nadu-Nedu and other new initiatives proposed to be launched soon,” said Education Minister A. Suresh.
The government had declared summer vacations till June 30, intending to reopen schools from July 1. But with the State still witnessing COVID-19 positive cases, the plan has been dropped. The Minister said an action plan was being chalked out to hold “preparatory” programmes for opening of schools from July 15 to August 15.
Committees on exams
The government, meanwhile, has constituted two committees to work out modalities and deliver a fair and unbiased results of the cancelled SSC and Intermediate Board exams. Both the panels are headed by former civil servant M. Chaya Ratan at the helm.
“We have constituted high-power Result Committees that would evolve a policy for declaration of the Intermediate and SSC results as per the directions given by the Supreme Court,” the Minister told The Hindu .
Besides Ms. Chaya Ratan as its chairperson, the Intermediate result committee comprises V.Ramesh from the State Board of Intermediate Education as member-convener, former Assistant Director of the SSC Board Anand Kishore as special invitee, Srinivas from Andhra Pradesh Centre for Financial Systems & Services (APCFSS) for IT support, Regional Inspection Officer, West Godavari Prabhakar (Examination), Principal of Government Junior College, Tudimella Simon Victor (Academician) and junior lecturers Rupa Kumari, M. Srinivasa Rao and P. Mohan Rao as members.
For SSC Public Examinations-2021, the panel put in place has Ms. Chaya Ratan as the chairperson and Director, Government Examinations A. Subba Reddy as member-convener, besides eight other members including the Director, State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) B. Pratap Reddy, DEO of Prakasam V.S. Subba Rao, Headmaster of ZP High School, Bondapally in Vizianagaram district T. Sanyasi Raju, HM of ZP High School, Penamaluru Y. Durga Bhavani, HM of SCME Municipal School, Guntur M. Srinivasa Rao, Principal of AP Tribal Welfare Residential Society school at Chittedu in Nellore district Koundinya Sai, HM of Kumar English Medium High School in Nuzvid T. Venkata Kumar and HM of Sri Vidyalaya English Medium High School, Gosala Y. Vijay Kumar.
Members of the two committees would hold discussions in online mode and arrive at a common understanding. If required, they would obtain opinions of other subject teachers also.
“The Intermediate panel would submit its report in five days, while the SSC committee had been given 10 days for the job,” said the Minister.
