Amaravati: The state education department has excluded the names of meritorious students in urban areas from the list of Pratibha awardees, while giving priority to students of private schools. Over 50 per cent of the students in the list are from the private and corporate schools which has sparked a controversy.
The Pratibha awards are given to the meritorious SSC students (2017-18) from all government and private schools in the state in appreciation of their hard work. The state government will present a laptop and cash prize of Rs 20,000 to each awardee. The school education department has prepared a list of nearly 3,988 students from 13 districts for the prestigious award. However, the list has only five students from municipal schools.
Around 306 students from municipal schools got 10 a Grade Point Average (GPA) during 2017-18 academic year, the highest ever in the history of the municipal schools. The municipal administration minister Dr P Narayana, municipal administration director K Kannababu set special focus on the issue of achieving 10/10 GPA during the 2017-18 academic year by providing additional study materials for preparation. With constant monitoring by the top authorities and motivation from the school teachers and principals, record number of students cleared the SSC examinations with 10 GPA this year.
“As many as 306 students got 10/10 GPA, which made the municipal schools a big hit with the people from slum areas as many of the high schools put up no-admission boards during the current academic year. This is result of hard work of our teachers,” said Municipal Teachers Federation (MTF) state president Somarauthu Ramakrishna. He, however, was baffled as to how the school education department left out their students from the recipients’ list of Pratibha awardees.
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