Andhra Pradesh to convert all Government schools to English medium

The Andhra Pradesh State Government has issued an order to convert all Telugu and Urdu medium schools to English medium. A Government Order (G.O.Ms.No.81 dated 05/11/2019) has been issued to implement the same. The Andhra Pradesh School Education Department has permitted the Commissioner of School Education to convert all Government, Mandal Parishad Primary (MPP) and Zilla Parishad (ZP) schools to English medium. 

The move will be initially be carried out for classes 1 to 8 from the academic year 2020-2021. Classes 9 to 10 will be converted from the academic years 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 respectively. The Commissioner of School Education shall ensure that Telugu and Urdu are retained as compulsory subjects; depending on the current medium of that particular school.

The Government has specified the following steps be ensured for the successful implementation of this initiative:  

1. Required teachers should be deployed in the School as per the staffing pattern prescribed by the Government from time to time and as per pupil teacher ratio for a single medium
2. SCERT shall take necessary action for designing and development of Teacher Hand Books, Training of Teachers in English teaching skills and knowledge, Compendium of best classroom practices and other pedagogical material for supporting the teachers to be skilled in English Medium teaching.
3. Director SCERT in coordination with Commissioner of School Education shall take comprehensive action for online assessment of the current English proficiency levels of the Teachers, design appropriate training programs for enchasing the English Medium teaching skills for the teachers.
4. Intensive and extensive training must be ensured during the current academic year and during the Summer of 2020 for equipping the Teachers to teach in English Medium from the academic Year 2020-21 for classes I to VIII. The number of training shall be given to the Teachers until improving their English Medium Teaching skills in specific subjects and in general.
5. Action shall be taken for reviving the English Language Teaching Centers & District English Centers (DECs) and re-locating them in District Institutes for Education & Training (DIETs).
6. Director, Text Book Press, should take action to obtain correct indents and ensure supply of English Medium Text Books to the Schools as per student enrolment for classes I to VIII well before the starting of the academic year.
7. Keeping in view of the conversion of all schools and classes from I to VIII into English Medium, the requirement of Teachers can be arrived at and proposals should be submitted to Government by the Commissioner School Education.
8. In future, Teacher recruitments, qualified candidates with the best proficiency in English-Medium teaching should be recruited.