Andhra Pradesh to revoke G.O. 117 on restructuring of govt. schools, re-apportioning of teaching staff in 2025-26

After holding several rounds of talks with representatives of teacher unions and other stakeholders, the Andhra Pradesh government has decided to revoke the contentious G.O. To strengthen school education, it has been decided to establish model primary schools in each gram panchayat by providing one teacher per class, downgrade the upper primary schools into primary schools where enrolment is less than or equal to 30 in Classes VI, VII and VIII by mapping the students to nearby high schools and upgrade the upper primary schools as high schools, where the enrolment in Classes VI, VII and VIII is more than or equal to 60. The proposed school structure by the NDA government from the next academic year would include Satellite Foundational School, Foundational School, Basic Primary School, Model Primary School and High School. Department officials have issued preparatory guidelines on school restructuring and reapportionment of teaching staff among various managements, i.e., government, zilla parishad, mandal parishad and municipal schools with an instruction that they should aim for optimum utilisation of resources, improve access to quality education and create a robust system to effectively meet the needs of the students. 117 under which, Classes III, IV and V of 4,731 primary schools in the State were mapped to 3,345 upper primary and high schools, had invited widespread criticism, resulting in increase in the dropout rate in government schools, as many students enrolled in private educational institutions.