India has 1.17 lakh single-teacher government schools: Education Ministry

NEW DELHI: There were 1,17,285 government schools with single teachers across the country in 2021-22, Annapurna Devi, minister of state for education told Lok Sabha in response to a question on Monday.

Data shared by the ministry in the parliament shows that Madhya Pradesh had the highest number of single-teacher schools –16,630 – followed by Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. States with the higher number of single-teacher schools are given below.

State with highest one-teacher schools in 2021-22

The question was asked by Sushil Kumar Singh, member of parliament from Aurangabad constituency of Bihar. He is also a member of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

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While he also asked the ministry for state-wise data on states which have carried out the exercise of consolidation of schools in the last three years, that data was not provided. School rationalisation or consolidation is the process of combining two or more low-enrolment, under-resourced schools to create larger institutions with better facilities and staff. However, this has led to the closure of thousands of community schools across the country.

School closure

The reply also revealed that there has been constant school closure as consolidation since 2019. In 2021-22, a total of 20,021 schools were closed with 14,89,115 schools remaining across the country.

Total number of schools