Appeal for Navodaya schools in all districts

Planning Board vice-chairman B. Vinod Kumar writes to NITI Aayog

Telangana State Planning Board Vice-Chairman B. Vinod Kumar has urged NIT Aayog to recommend to the Central government to sanction and construct a Navodaya School in each of the 33 districts in the State.

This would enable students to access the best schools without their socio-economic status impeding their growth. Construction of the Navodaya schools, at least one in each district, was also in line with the policy of nurturing students with accessible and quality education.

Mr. Vinod Kumar, in a letter addressed to NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar, recalled that Navodaya schools were important institutions run by the Central government supplementing the State governments’ efforts in spreading education to talented under-privileged students. The State had taken a progressive step by increasing the number of districts from 10 to 33 and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allocation of Navodaya schools for all the districts across the State.

It was disturbing to note the skewed distribution of these schools in favour of north and central India with Telangana getting only nine schools for its 33 districts with a population of 3.52 crore. “It (Telangana) has been grossly neglected in the allocation of these new schools. States with similar or lesser population such as Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand and Assam have twice or thrice the number of Navodaya schools than Telangana,” he lamented.

Since Telangana is the youngest State, there is a need for increasing such Navodaya schools in each district. He recalled that Telangana MPs in the previous Lok Sabha raised the issue in the House as Telangana lagged behind other States in education parameters due to historical injustice.