Minutes of the meeting of the Chief Secretary of the Department of Education with the members of the Civil Services Joint Staff Council on 17.11.2021

The Principal Secretary to Government, School Education Department convened a Departmental Joint Staf Council meeting with Senior Ofcers of School Education Department and Principal Ofce Bearers of (3) Recognized Teachers Associations (APCSJSC) (Permanent) to discuss on proposed social audit in schools and other issues. The list of participants i.e., Senior Ofcers and Principal Ofce Bearers of (3) Recognized Teachers Associations (APCSJSC) (Permanent) have attended the meeting are shown in the Annexure.

2. The Director of School Education, A.P welcomed the Principal Secretary (School Education) and all other Senior Ofcers for the scheduled meeting and explained that, the preliminary departmental Joint Staf Council meeting was conducted to take necessary steps to redress the departmental issues as per the instructions of the Chief Secretary & Chairperson of AP Civil Services Joint Staf Council (APCSJSC). Further, he requested the Principal Ofce Bearers of (3) Recognized Teachers Associations (APCSJAC) (Permanent) to raise their issues/demands/problems without repeating the same issues/demands raised by other associations. Further, the Principal Ofce Bearers of (3) Recognized Teachers Associations i.e., STU A.P., AP UTF and APTF (1938) have represented the following issues/demands.

Minutes  of the CSJSC on 17.11.2021

A) Mobile Applications: The Principal Ofce Bearers have requested to take immediate necessary steps to resolve the issues that are being faced by the Headmasters with regard to diferent mobile applications (i.e., IMMS, Students Attendance Monitoring Application and AEBAS). Further, they informed that, they are forced to capture more number of photos with regard toilets as there are more number of toilets available in high schools, they requested the authorities to implement the practice of capturing twice or thrice in a week rather than daily. 

   Further, they have brought to the notice of Principal Secretary, School Education Department that, Memo/Show Cause Notices are being issued to the Headmasters even though they are uploading photos (toilets) in the IMMS app in the stipulated time.

Response: The Director of School Education, A.P has informed that, the Students Attendance Monitoring Application is being used to capture the attendance of the students. Further, keeping in view of the issues raised from the feld level, multiple logins have been given to the schools to capture the attendance of all classes simultaneously to reduce the valuable time of the Headmasters. Further, there is a proposal to integrate the capturing of both teacher and student attendance in online.

        Further, the Director, Mid-Day Meal & School Sanitation has informed that, the IMMS (Integrated Monitoring for Mid-Day Meals & School Sanitation) application is being used to capture the meals taken by the students and toilet maintenance, feedback etc., Further, the server capacity was increased in the State Data Centre (SDC) in the month of April, 2021. At present, there are no server issues with regard to IMMS application. 

        Further, the Principal Secretary to Government, School Education Department has informed that, the mobile applications i.e., IMMS, Students Attendances etc., have been introduced for real time monitoring and to reduce the burden of the Headmaster concerned with respect to reporting compliance in writing from time to time and to make the administration easier. Further, he assured that, the Artifcial Intelligence (AI) will be adapted for schools transformed under Nadu – Nedu Phase-I only and not for all schools. Further, the mandated photos upload with in stipulated time will be modifed as any time of the day and the instructions will be issued accordingly. Inspection format will be withdrawn.

           Further, he also informed that, no memos/show cause notices will be issued to headmasters/teachers with respect to bio-metric attendance or on the tickets generated by IMMS app.  Finally, he informed that, a high level meeting will be conducted with TCS ofcials to fnd out remedies against the issues fagged and the date will be intimated for discussion in this regard.

(Action: Director, Mid-Day Meal & School Sanitation & Deputy Director, Planning)

B) Jagananna Vidya Kanuka (JVK) Kits: The Principal Ofce Bearers have stated that, at ground level, there is gap between the indent raised and stock received related to JVK Kits and especially there is a huge diferences in shoes sizes and they are not able to exchange. Specifcally, he explained about the JVK kits received and issues faced in ZPHS, J Kothapalli (v), C.K.Dinne (M), Y.S.R.Kadapa.

Response: The State Project Director, Samagra Shiksha has informed that, the JVK Kits will be issued based on the enrollment which is drawn up from the previous years enrollment data by assuming 100% promotion. Further, with respect to special mention regarding ZPHS, J Kothapalli (v), C.K.Dinne (M),Y.S.R.Kadapa the SPD, SS has requested to furnish the detailed information for taking further necessary action 

(Action: State Project Director, Samagra Shiksha & all DEOs)

C) Mapping of Schools (3 to 5 classes to Nearest High School): The Principal Ofce Bearers has requested to not to map the Classes 3 to 5 in to nearest high school due to no adequate rooms, teachers etc., 

Response: The Principal Secretary, School Education has informed that, the policy decision was taken after analyzing the location of schools, their distance, availability of accommodation and other feasibility of implementation with the long term objective of improving the learning standards of the children. 

       Further, he requested the associations to disseminate the benefts of mapping of classes 3 to 5 to nearest high schools to enable them for learning through the subject teachers concerned in spirit of National Educational Policy, 2020 and also to ensure Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) in Foundational Schools. He informed that it is also being planned to meet the headmasters at district or regional level and to appraise them on the objective and also to ascertain their feedback directly.

D) Unifed Service Rules: The Principal Ofce Bearers has requested to resolve the issues relating to Unifed Service Rules for promotions/appointment etc.,, of Mandal Educational Ofcers, Deputy Educational ofcers etc., as there is a dire need to have ofcers for monitoring and supervision in their mandals/divisions etc.

Response : The Director of School Education, A.P has informed that, a proposal was already submitted to the Government for creating a separate promotional avenue for teachers working in PR localbodies and it is under active consideration.

E) Ammavodi: The Principal Ofce Bearers appraised the ofcers that, certain unique mothers are not getting AMMAVODI amount due to technical issues even though they are fully eligible.

Response: The Director of School Education, A.P has informed that, there are a number grievances pending related to AMMAVODI and the same was appraised to Principal Secretary to Government, Finance Dept., 

F) Salaries Issues regarding newly recruited teachers: The PrincipalOfce Bearers have stated that, the newly recruited teachers (DSC-2008) are not getting their salaries due to non-generation of Treasury IDs and CFMS IDs and requested to take immediate necessary action.

Response: The Director of School Education, A.P has informed that, the issue was being examined at Finance level and the orders going to be issued shortly. Further with regard to non issuance of position ids, in case of teachers recruited under DSC 2018 and posted recently, the matter will be attended to on top most priority.

            (Action: Joint Director, VE)

G) Recruitment Of Teachers: The Principal Ofce Bearers have requested to take immediate necessary action for flling up of teacher vacancies by issuing DSC Notifcation at the earliest.

Response: The Director, School Education Department has informed that as per the UDISE data, the teacher pupil ratio in AP is around 1:19 and it is one of the lowest in the country. In spite of such a situation, that there are vacancies of teachers is due to large number of primary schools with less than 60 children each but provided with two teachers as per RTE mandate. Another reason is the continuation of two media, i.e., Telugu and English in most of the high schools. These two call for thorough reapportionment of the teacher resource. Government is going to issue orders for taking up teacher reapportionment and it is hoped that it would address the issue of shortage of teachers.

            (Action: Joint Director, TET)

H) The Principal Ofce Bearers of Recognized Teachers’ Association have requested the Principal Secretary to Government, School Education Department to issue instructions to the authorities to conduct summer classes to the PETs who are not having B.P.Ed qualifcation to get promotions. Further, raised that some of the students have not received 7th class Text Books. Implementation of old pension to the DSC 2003 candidates as per the orders of the Apex Court, Government of India.

Response: The Director of School Education informed that, the requests are appraised to the Government.

(Action: Joint Director, APMS/Services & Deputy Director, Planning)

3. Finally, the Principal Secretary to Government, School Education has once again stressed upon the importance and priority given by the Hon’ble Chief Minister to the School Education Department. He directed the concerned for taking all steps for successful implementation of all schemes, programmes etc., for the students through constant and continuous monitoring for improving the standards of the Government Schools and learning outcome process.