AIDWA urges Lokesh to address real problems plaguing schools in A.P.

The Hindu

10-07-2025

Members of the Andhra Pradesh chapter of All-India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) have urged the Minister for Human Resource Development (HRD) Nara Lokesh to initiate effective measures to address the existing problems in schools, which have been adversely affecting their performances.
In a letter addressed to the Minister, the association's State president B. Prabhavati, and general secretary D. Rama Devi, said as part of their recent visit to government schools, certain key issues came to the fore, which needed to be resolved immediately. Citing events like mega Parent-Teacher Meetings organised across the State and attempt to achieve Guinness World Record, they said it would augur well for the school education system if the government focussed on handling real problems.
They said the workers engaged to cook midday meal in schools were not paid salaries for some time and some of the schools had not been receiving fine quality rice and allocations were not being made according to the menu. The members said they found many students bringing lunch boxes from home as, according to them, the food served at their school did not taste good. In some schools, children were made to clean toilets in the absence of sanitary workers.
Teachers complained that the burden of operating different apps was affecting their teaching schedules. They said in some schools, teachers were seen immersed in their mobile phones, instead of teaching children how to keep the electronic gadgets at a distance and focus on their academics.
The AIDWA members cited schools without compound walls, which posed security threat to the students and said mapping of schools without heeding the parents' plea and closure of schools in Dalit habitations in the name of establishing model schools would have an adverse impact on the academic performance of the young learners.
They urged the Minister to ensure immediate payment of the salary arrears to workers engaged for cooking the food served in the midday meal programme in schools and demanded a hike in their salaries. Their other demands included conduct of training sessions for teachers on how to make classroom teaching interesting for students and effective steps to control use of mobile phones on school campuses.
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