Aiming for top spot in 2019: District Educational Officer

Tirupati: The district’s School Education department has been feeling elated as their efforts in placing the district much ahead from its last position have yielded fruitful results. Having travelled a long journey from the last place to reach fifth place in the pass percentage, the district now focussed its plans on achieving top place.

District Educational Officer (DEO) Dr K Panduranga Swamy, who took charge in the middle of last academic year, has found it a tough task as the district secured last place in the pass percentage for three consecutive years. He took it as a challenge and implemented the plans successfully to reach their target. In the results announced a couple of days back, the district has moved steeply to fifth place from 13th place. 

On the occasion, the DEO in an exclusive interview to The Hans India has analysed the factors that were responsible for good results and also explained his future plans. He said that they did not leave no stone unturned in increasing the pass percentage.

Every care was taken by discussing with senior teachers and expert committees. “We went ahead with a strategy that the intelligent students should secure 10 grade points and those who are academically weak should at least pass the exams and chalked out plans accordingly. 

The Mahasankalpam and Vijayosthu study material have made a great difference in fulfilling our plans. Especially, with the Vijayosthu material aimed at weak students helped them in securing 52-64 per cent marks in different subjects out of 80 marks,” the DEO explained. 

The district has secured 96.36 pass percentage this year whereas it registered only 90.11 in March 2016 and 80.55 in 2017. There is only 1.57 percent difference between the first place (Prakasam district) and Chittoor district.

While in 2017, 979 students out of 51,739 have secured 10 GPA points, in 2018 out of 51,764 students 2,452 have got 10 GPA points that includes both private and government schools. Among government schools, only 281 students have got 10 GPA points. Out of 1,114 schools, 590 schools have got 100 percent results.

Saying this, the DEO attributed all the success to the collective efforts of teachers who have shown great interest in getting good results and guidance given by the RJD Prathap Reddy. Orientation to subject teachers, divisional level review meetings for headmasters, monitoring of students’ achievements from time to time, motivational classes by experts, District Collector’s periodical video conferences with headmasters and 28-day final preparation have all contributed their share in getting good results, he averred. 

“However, we will not contend with these results till we place the district on top in March 2019. For this, we will constitute expert committees to prepare fresh study material soon. From the beginning of the academic year we are going forward with a meticulous plan towards capacity and confidence building,” the DEO asserted. To achieve anything first, the regularity of the students will be a must. 

In view of this, he said that parent-teachers association meetings will be organised regularly along with school management committee meetings. “To give motivation to others, we are planning to issue certificates to all the schools, who secured 100 percent results and the teachers and headmasters will be felicitated soon,” Swamy maintained.

By V Pradeep Kumar