The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : `Badi Baata' not on track

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 08, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

`Badi Baata' not on track

B.V.S. Bhaskar

RAJAHMUNDRY: The very idea of bringing back school dropouts and out-of-school children to regular schools -- `Badi Baata' which was launched on Monday -- has a major setback as the teaching community has not shown much interest in the week-long programme.

In East Godavari district, 50 per cent teachers out of 2,000 -- working in primary schools -- are not in their respective hometowns due to vacation and in the rest, only 20 to 30 per cent are participating. And, Badi Baata has become a farce in the agency area. As per district Education Department records, 12,739 students are out of school while 18,000 are dropouts. In Rajahmundry, a final figure of dropouts or out-of-school children is not available yet.

The District Education Officer, Prasanna Kumar, on Tuesday said that most of the teachers were not showing interest as it was mentioned in the G.O. that teachers should participate in the programme "voluntarily." But, Mr. Kumar said messages had been sent across to teachers who were available to take part in the programme.

The office-bearer of the United Teacher Forum of Kakinada rural mandal, N. Prabhakara Rao, attributed it to teachers going on vacation. Most of the teachers had gone to Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Tirupati and other places and were expected in second week (by that time Badi Baata would be over), he said.

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