School mergers in Andhra Pradesh leave rural students facing months of disruption

School mergers in Andhra Pradesh leave rural students facing months of disruption Premium

After a gap of six months, nine-year-old Lakshmi (name changed) from Bangaramma Kandriga village in the temple town of Tirupati district is getting ready to attend the nearby school in her village. She and 15 other students from Classes 3 to 5 have missed half a year of schooling after the State government's latest round of school restructuring and mergers.

This academic year, the nearby village school was restructured and merged with a school in the Siddamanaidu Kandriga panchayat, roughly two and a half kilometres away. Since parents refused to send their children to the school in Siddamanaidu Kandriga, citing long distance and poor condition of the path, especially for children under 10 years of age, students have stopped attending the assigned school for almost six months.

Only in the past few days, after repeated appeals by parents and the village community, a teacher for Classes 3 to 5 was unofficially deputed back to the village school. The arrangement, however, is entirely temporary and informal, and its duration remains unclear, according to a school functionary who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Since the children are attending this informal setup while their official registration remains with the Siddamanaidu Kandriga school, they continue to be marked absent, “ the above person added.

The school in Siddamanaidu Kandriga panchayat is designated as a Model Primary School — defined by the State government as a primary school located in a Gram Panchayat or municipal ward with at least 60 students from Classes 1 to 5, and staffed with one teacher for each class. In contrast, the school in Bangaramma Kandriga village, which previously operated Classes 1 to 5, was demoted this academic year to run only Classes 1 and 2, while Classes 3, 4 and 5 were merged with the Siddamanaidu Kandriga school.

The concerns raised by Lakshmi's family are shared across the village. Gundam Venkatesh, a 28-year-old resident of Bangaramma Kandriga, who has filed multiple petitions with the district administration, says the primary school has been serving the village since the 1990s. The village has around 50 children from Classes 1 to 5; about 15 study in private schools, while nearly 34 attend the government school. Of these, 16 are in Classes 3-5, the group now asked to shift to the model school.

“At the beginning of the academic year, the government informed us that the school would be restructured,” Mr. Venkatesh says. Under the new plan, Classes 1 and 2 were retained in the village school, handled by a single teacher for fewer than 20 students, while Classes 3-5 were moved to the model school, which has one teacher per grade. “But that school is far. We asked the government not to do this,” he says.

In a bid to keep their school functional till Class 5, villagers say they approached parents who had enrolled their children in private schools. They urged these parents to enroll in the government school, especially since the building had been modernised in 2020-21 with ₹16 lakh in government funding. “Parents even agreed,” Mr. Venkatesh says, “but still, nothing worked.”

“During this academic year, after seeing their children sitting at home and not being sent to school, at least three parents tried to admit their children in a private school,” Mr. Venkatesh says. “But the private school management told parents that the children's names are still shown as enrolled in the government school, so they cannot be granted admission.”

The model school to which the children were assigned falls short of the standards expected of it. “As per the government's plan, the model school should have five teachers,” the functionary says. “But right now, it has only three. And of the classrooms available, only one is in a good condition, another is in a depleted state.” He added, the school also has only one washroom, shared by both boys and girls.

“Our request to convert this school back into a Basic Primary School is still pending with the administration,” Mr. Venkatesh added.

Although students in some areas are now facing longer distances due to the mergers and restructuring, other schools that previously had adequate enrollment have been reduced to only a few students. Some have already closed, and others are nearing closure.

Durga (name changed) walks into the primary school in Tatiparthi village, in the coastal district of Kakinada. A Class 2 student, she is the only child present that morning; the two children enrolled in Class 1 are absent. Sitting alone in an otherwise empty classroom, Durga appears visibly uninterested or at least bored. Just a few years ago, her class had been full of friends. The school is itself housed in a building that has served the village since Independence.

As per one of the school functionaries in the district and villagers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the school had 68 students from Classes 1 to 5 in 2021-22. But after the government restructured schools and shifted Classes 3, 4 and 5 to the high school, around 60 children moved out, some to private schools and the rest continued in the government high school. The remaining nine students dwindled further, leaving only two children by the end of the same academic year.

Villagers here say they are “counting the days” until the school shuts down. Jayakar Pilli, President of the Andhra Pradesh United Teachers Federation (APUTF) in East Godavari district, says the trend is widespread. He explains that keeping a school running with only Classes 1 and 2 makes it difficult to sustain enrollment. “Most village schools have just a handful of children, sometimes only ten, sometimes even fewer. After Classes 3, 4 and 5 were shifted, some children continued going to government model schools, but many more shifted to private schools,” he says.

Further teachers in the State argue that the government is placing the blame on low enrolment within the community instead of examining how repeated rounds of restructuring have pushed families away from government schools. Further, one of the teachers explains that during the YSRCP tenure, the State implemented the Amma Vodi scheme, and under the current NDA government led by the TDP, it continues as Thalliki Vandanam. Teachers say this financial incentive is being actively leveraged by private schools. Under both versions, every mother receives around ₹13,000 per year for each child enrolled in either a government or private school from Classes 1 to 12.

“Private schools in the nearby town are convincing parents to shift their children, even offering transport. They tell parents to simply credit the Amma Vodi or Thalliki Vandanam amount to the school. Since parents don't have to spend anything extra, many feel it is easier to choose private schools”, the teacher said.

At least three villagers echoed this trend in the Tatiparthi village. All of them said they had withdrawn their children from the government primary school after the merger and enrolled them in private institutions instead. They admitted they rely on the ₹13,000 credited under the scheme to cover the fees and believe private schools offer “better quality”, and transport.

Both parties have tended to blame each other for the state of primary schools. In 2023, under the YSRCP government, Andhra Pradesh adopted a school rationalisation/merger policy aligned with the National Education Policy (NEP). As per the State policy, Primary schools were restricted to Classes 1 and 2, while Classes 3, 4 and 5 were moved to nearby high schools. According to State government data, a little over two lakh forty-three thousand students from almost four thousand eight hundred primary schools were mapped to around thirty-three hundred upper primary and high schools as part of this restructuring.

However, after the NDA coalition government led by the TDP came to power, the structure was revised once again. Under the new order, Classes 3, 4 and 5 were brought back from the high schools to one designated primary school in the nearby panchayat, which was reclassified as a “model school.” The remaining primary schools were allowed to run only Classes 1 and 2.

In both the cases, the State has moved away from the earlier primary school structure and continued with an NEP-aligned restructuring and merger policy.

According to UDISE data, Andhra Pradesh has seen nearly a 4% decline in the number of government schools between 2014 and 2024, while the number of private schools has increased by about 7% over the same period.

Published - November 17, 2025 06:52 pm IST

education / Andhra Pradesh / school / teaching and learning / students

Source: The Hindu
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