Ahmedabad: Statistics from Gujarat indicate abysmally falling standards of the primary education sector in the state. Around 1,606 government-run primary schools here were being operated by a single teacher for all students from classes 1 to 8. When it was 700 schools with similar conditions in 2022, it has doubled in 2023, that is in a year, The New Express reported, citing the state government's submission in assembly.
The state has a total of more than 32,000 primary schools.
In the state assembly's ongoing budget session, education minister Kuber Dindor revealed that the number of schools having a shortage of teachers has increased and stated that the situation was because teachers were transferred to places of their choice. The minister was responding to Congress MLA Tushar Chaudhary's question.
Responding to a query from Congress MLA Tushar Chaudhary, the minister stated that 1,606 government primary schools in Gujarat had only one teacher as of December 2023. The state has around 32,000 government primary schools.
However, the minister submitted that the government has taken initiatives such as contractual elementary teachers- 'Gyansahayaks'- and holding teacher transfer camps.
But Senior Congress MLA Shailesh Parmar pointed out that despite the government's "commitments", the number of single-teacher primary schools doubled over a year.
He added that records suggest that there are 19,000 vacancies for school teachers in the state and wondered how the government is planning to address the teacher shortage issue.
More leaders from the opposition, like Congress MLAs Kirit Patel, Geniben Thakor and Tushar Chaudhary, asked whether the state has set a deadline to fill the teacher vacancies.
Following this, the education minister claimed that though there are 1606 schools operated by one teacher, around half of them maintain the student-teacher ratio of 30:1, required by the Right to Education (RTE) Act.
According to him, out of that total, 20 schools have less than five students, 86 have five to ten students, 316 have 11 to 20 students, 419 have 21 to 30 students, 694 have 31 to 60 students, and 71 have more than 61