For a couple of years, 12-year-old Babu Vadde was known as the ‘swooning boy’ at the Mandal Parishad Upper Primary School in Kotbaspalle village in Telangana’s Vikarabad district. He would faint from hunger in the hours before the midday meal, sometimes during morning assembly. Not anymore. The breakfast scheme introduced by the Revanth Reddy government in state-run schools at the start of this academic year has helped ease the morning hunger pangs and accompanying weakness among children like Babu. His friends say he looks healthier now. Reminded of his fainting spells, the Class VII student smiles sheepishly. “I can focus more on studies now,” he says.
The Mandal Parishad school is among 1,269 schools where the scheme was launched in the first phase on June 15, when schools reopened after the summer break. An expansion of the pilot scheme introduced by Reddy’s predecessor, K. Chandrashekar Rao, it is expected to reach all 26,000-odd schools and junior colleges across Telangana by the end of the year.
But breakfast is just one of a slew of initiatives the Congress government in Telangana has rolled out over the past two years. Chief Minister Reddy, who also holds the education portfolio, is determined to overhaul the state’s education sector and leave a lasting imprint (see Building Better Schools). Last year, pre-primary education was introduced in government schools for the first time.
There is also a plan to vastly improve government day schools by introducing corporate-level infrastructure and pre-primary sections. In June, the Reddy government launched Telangana Public Schools (TGPS), with the aim of providing education on a par with the best-run private schools. The objective is to establish such schools in most of the state’s 119 assembly constituencies, with English as the medium of instruction, facial recognition attendance systems, digital classrooms, upgraded science and computer labs, and opportunities for personality development. “Every student must be equipped to compete with the world,” Reddy said at the launch of the first such school in Arutla, in Ranga Reddy district. “Quality education and nutritious food,” he added, “must go hand in hand.”
Another flagship initiative is the Young India Integrated Residential Schools (YIIRS). The schools are envisioned as institutions of social inclusion, marking a departure from the caste- and community-based residential schools that have operated under the government system in united Andhra Pradesh and later Telangana for decades, catering separately to SCs, STs, OBCs and minorities. “The YIIRS will bring children from different social and economic backgrounds together in a common learning environment,” says Dr Naveen Nicolas, director, school education.
Bringing back students
The Mandal Parishad Primary School at Rangapur village, just off the Hyderabad-Kodangal highway, offers a glimpse of how the introduction of pre-primary education in government schools is helping attract parents who might otherwise opt for private schools. The school now has 40 students, including eight in Nursery, four in LKG and one in UKG. With enrolment in government schools declining, the government hopes that the addition of pre-primary classes and the breakfast scheme will bring more students back into the fold. “As parents become aware of the pre-primary classes and the facilities provided—free books, uniforms, learning equipment and now morning breakfast—we expect enrolment to rise further next year,” says headmistress M. Basaveswari.
The government has also expanded the range of supplies provided to students. In addition to the uniforms, textbooks, notebooks and workbooks supplied until 2023-24, the present government has added a tie, belt, ID card holder, black and white pairs of shoes, and socks to the student entitlement kits. The aim, officials say, is “to ensure that every child has the basic academic and personal requirements needed for schooling with dignity”.
Meanwhile, the TGPS project envisages upgrading selected existing government school campuses, wherever feasible, by integrating nearby or co-located primary schools and junior colleges. The idea is to optimise the use of existing infrastructure, teachers and other educational resources to provide a continuous, high-quality educational pathway from pre-primary to Class XII on a single campus, equipped with modern academic, digital, laboratory, sports and inclusive facilities. A total of 134 such campuses are proposed at an estimated cost of Rs 1,889 crore. Each TGPS is expected to accommodate around 1,500 students on a 4-5-acre campus, subject to the availability of suitable land and infrastructure.
At Arutla, the first of the four demonstration schools to be ready, enrolment rose from 744 to 1,585 in a year, an increase of 113 per cent. Officials say 72 per cent of new admissions were students who had shifted from private schools. “All our initiatives are intended to strengthen parental confidence in government schools and encourage children, including those presently studying in private schools, to enrol in the public education system,” says Dr Yogita Rana, secretary, education department.
The government’s education sector reform effort is also being backed by a major infrastructure and institution-building push. For the YIIRS project, the ambition is accompanied by a substantial financial outlay of Rs 21,000 crore. Of the 119 assembly constituencies in Telangana, 105 are to have a YIIRS; some segments in Hyderabad will have to be excluded because of the lack of space for such large campuses. Each campus is designed to accommodate 2,560 students from Classes V to XII, with sports and co-curricular activities, digital and AI-enabled learning, specialised laboratories and a focus on skills and holistic development.
Delivery challenges
But like with much else in the country, the best of intentions come undone by poor delivery. It is no different in Telangana. Many schools had yet to receive their promised student kits by Dussehra, although distribution was scheduled to begin at the start of the academic year. At the Zilla Parishad High School in Madharam in Vikarabad district, for instance, students were found attending classes in civilian clothes and chappals.
Progress on setting up infrastructure for the YIIRSes has met with obstacles such as land clearances, which has slowed down construction. Administrative sanction has been granted for 87 schools, with proposals for the remaining 18 submitted to the government. Construction is underway at 71 locations, while contractors are mobilising at six. The others are at various stages of land clearance, detailed project report preparation and tendering, officials say. At least 10 schools are expected to begin operations in the 2027-28 academic year, with the remaining campuses to be opened in phases.
A better start
What’s been welcomed with great enthusiasm is the breakfast programme that is now an adjunct to the midday meals served in schools and aims to further improve children’s nutrition, health and educational outcomes. At the Mandal Parishad Primary School in Rangapur, children begin trickling in by 8.15 am, an hour before classes begin. The village is 40 km from Kodangal, Reddy’s assembly constituency. As S. Anusha, a farmer from the Scheduled Caste Madiga community, drops her daughters, Jashvika, in Class II, and Deeksha, in LKG, a Hare Krishna Mission (HKM) van carrying breakfast arrives. HKM is among the charitable organisations engaged by the government to implement the scheme, alongside the Akshaya Patra Foundation and the Manna Trust.
The breakfast comes from a centralised kitchen in Kodangal, one of 39 such kitchens being set up across Telangana at a cost of Rs 299.9 crore. Vans deliver the food in sealed steel containers, with quantities determined by app-based indents submitted by headmasters the previous day. The menu, certified by the Hyberabad-based National Institute of Nutrition, includes dosas, millet idlis, pooris and upma, served with chutney, sambar or vegetable kurma. Children in Classes I-V receive 100 ml of milk per serving, while those in Classes VI-XII get 150 ml, three times a week. On the remaining days, students from pre-primary to Class X are served ragi java, a millet-based drink rich in essential micronutrients. “Our children are now refusing to eat breakfast at home,” says V. Venkatesh, a sanitation worker with the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation who lives in Rangapur.
Dr Rana explains Reddy’s intent behind the scheme. “The morning breakfast programme was introduced with a simple belief: No child should enter a classroom hungry, and no child’s learning should suffer for want of a nutritious meal.” Under Reddy, the pilot was implemented in 2024 in Kodangal, which Rana says, showed “encouraging results, with attendance reportedly improving from around 75 to 90 per cent, alongside better punctuality, attentiveness and classroom participation”.
Next on Reddy’s agenda is a free bus service for children in state-run schools, with pick-up and drop-off at their doorsteps. It is the only bonus facility private schools offer, says the CM, but at an additional cost, placing a burden on poor families. Believing that the state’s children deserve better, Reddy appears determined to completely “overhaul the system”.
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