No non-teaching duties for teachers, says HRD Minister Lokesh

Minister for Human Resource Development (HRD) Nara Lokesh on Friday said all government teachers should focus on achieving the targeted learning outcomes.

Interacting with the State president of the Andhra Pradesh Teachers’ Federation (APTF) and former general secretary P. Varaprasad who flagged several concerns, Mr. Lokesh responded saying that in the last 17 months, 423 issues were brought to his attention by the Federation of Andhra Pradesh Teachers’ Organisations (FAPTO). Of them, 200 issues had been resolved, 81 issues were not feasible to resolve, 72 requests were related to policy matters and 71 issues fell under the purview of the courts.

Mr. Lokesh assured them that except for the mega PTM next month, teachers would not have any other non-teaching duties during this academic year. He said the District Education Officers and Mandal Education Officers should focus solely on learning outcomes. He also informed them that Kadapa-model smart kitchens would be set up across the State.

The APTF leaders brought to the Minister’s notice several issues faced by teachers. They appealed to him for TET exemption for in-service teachers who joined before 2011, to conduct a separate TET for in-service teachers and reduce the cut-off marks to 45%, implement the old pension scheme for teachers who joined service before 2003, implement Central Government Memo 57, continue Telugu medium as a parallel medium in government schools across the State, ensure at least one Telugu-medium school in every mandal, review the current system of nine types of schools and separate Classes 1 to 5 from high schools and give special attention to unified service rules and resolve this long-pending issue.