‘Education Officers will be fined ₹1,000 for delay in supply of textbooks’

Principal Sec. Praveen Prakash urges parents to report textbook delays via WhatsApp/SMS; promises ₹1,000 compensation & strict action against negligent school authorities. He visited Zilla Parishad High School in Guntur & found Class IV students without science workbooks. He reminded of similar incident last year & urged Education Officers to carry out school-wise reviews & take up intensive drive in next 15 days.

Principal Secretary, School Education, Praveen Prakash has said that from December 1, students and their parents can send him complaints, through WhatsApp or SMS mode (Principal Secretary, School Education at 9013133636) of delay in supply of textbooks from their school authorities.

The official said he would enquire into every complaint and if any of it was confirmed, the Director of Textbooks would be made to supply within 24 hours and a sum of ₹1,000 would be transferred to the parents towards compensation for the delay.

“This money will be recovered from the District Education Officer, Deputy DEO or the Mandal Education Officer concerned for negligence,” he said.

The announcement followed his visit to the Zilla Parishad High School at Vengalayapalem in Guntur district where he found that the science workbooks were not supplied to students of Class IV.

Expressing displeasure over the failure of the school management to ensure timely supply of the workbooks, he pointed to the fact that the students had already appeared for two unit tests and they would be writing half-yearly exams from November 24. “They have not been given the workbooks so far. Imagine with what confidence they would have written their tests,” he said.

Mr. Praveen Prakash reminded the school authorities of a similar ‘dereliction of duty’ last year at the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya at Viragattam village in Manyam district, leading to strict action initiated against the District and Mandal Education Officers and the school headmaster.

“I thought such action would send out a clear message to others, but recurrence of such incidents is very disappointing. Merely entering the data in the official portal is not enough, you need to analyse the data,” he emphasised.