Students oppose merger of schools in Agency

Thursday, June 29, 2017 
Visakhapatnam

Students of Killoguda Government School went on a protest today opposing ‘cluster’ approach to schools and merger with the Tribal Welfare Schools.

The students led by Girijan Sangham raised slogans against the proposal of the State government to merge schools and limit the number to one school in each panchayat. They demanded hostel facility at their school.

Girijan Sangham secretary Suryanarayana said there were 17 Zilla Parishad and government schools in the 11 mandals of the Agency. All the schools have full-fledged staff and in case of merger with Tribal Welfare Schools, 200 teachers would lose jobs and over 4,000 students would have to be accommodated in other schools and the facilities would be far from adequate. He said that cluster system of maintaining only one school in each panchayat would result in more dropouts. There are 12 to 20 villages in each panchayat and those living away from panchayat headquarters have to walk long distances to reach the schools, he said.