Government shutting down 1,000 primary schools a year: Congress

Hyderabad: The Congress party on Friday accused the TRS government of shutting down more than 1,000 primary schools in the State every year ever since it came to power.

Addressing a press conference, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) official spokesperson Syed Nizamuddin alleged that the TRS government had completely ruined the public education system, especially primary schools.

He said that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao was giving lot of hype to a few hundred residential schools,but hiding the fact that his government was shutting down thousands of primary schools on one pretext or the other.

"There were 28,822 government schools in 2013-2014 at the time of Telangana formation. They got reduced to 26,040 in 2018-19. It is now planning to shut down 4,000 more schools. Can TRS Government justify the permanent closure of these schools," he asked.,

Citing the latest report of District Information System for Education (DSIE), Nizamuddin said the enrolment in government schools had come down by more than one lakh in just three years.

But the enrolment in private schools had increased significantly. There were 22.87 lakh students in government schools in the year 2014-15. But their number got reduced to 21.72 lakh in 2016-17 registering a decrease by 1,14,739. The official figures for 2017-18 and 2018-19 are not yet made public and therefore, the number of drop-outs might be much higher, he said.

Similarly, he said the enrolment in Madrasa and unrecognised schools has come down from 69,082 in 2014-15 to 34,972 in 2016-17 registering a decrease by 34,110.

However, the enrolment in private schools during this period has increased by 47,631. "Even if we consider that some students might have joined private schools, as many as 1,01,218 students have gone missing from the primary education system," he said.