Proposal to merge schools with less students to come up in next cabinet meeting: Himachal minister

NEW DELHI: Himachal Pradesh Education Minister Rohit Thakur on Tuesday said a proposal to merge high schools and secondary schools with less than 20 and 25 students respectively will be taken up in the next cabinet meeting. Officials have been instructed to provide data on the number of students in the senior secondary and high schools across the state, Thakur told reporters here.

He cited the example of an imbalance in the student-teacher ratio at Senior Secondary School Hansa in Lahaul and Spiti district where there are eight teachers for just two students.

"We have set a yardstick to merge or downgrade high schools where the number of students in classes 5 to 10 is 20 or fewer and senior secondary schools where the number of students in classes 6 to 12 is 25 or fewer," he said.

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Decline of 5.13 lakh students in enrolment

The goal, Thakur explained, is to foster healthy competition between the government and private schools to ensure quality education for students in the state. He said there has been a decline of 5.13 lakh students in enrolment in the government schools during the past two decades.

Merger of schools is happening not just in Himachal but also across the country and 76,000 schools have already been merged, the minister said. Earlier, 1,100 primary and middle schools in the state with low student numbers were merged, he said.