UDISE: West Bengal directs physical verification of 4,133 zero-enrolment schools

KOLKATA: West Bengal government has asked district administrations to inspect 4,133 schools that have reported zero enrolment and assess whether their infrastructure can be put to alternative public use, while keeping open the possibility of reviving institutions wherever feasible, School Education Minister Dipak Barman said on Friday.

The move follows the recent release of Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) data, which shows that the state accounts for 4,133 of the 5,663 zero-enrolment schools in the country, an education department official said.

"As many as 19,502 teachers are listed against these schools," the official added. Barman said the UDISE+ figures appeared to reflect anomalies in data uploaded by some private schools.

"Many of these schools did not upload data properly. Some of them updated teachers' information but not students' details. So, those schools are showing zero students, but they have teachers," Barman told PTI.

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UDISE+ data

He said the discrepancies involved different categories of schools, including primary, upper primary and secondary institutions, and that state-run and state-aided institutes did not fall under this category.

The minister said the school education department had recently directed every district to constitute a committee headed by the district magistrate to undertake physical verification of zero-enrolment schools and prepare an inventory of their land, buildings and other infrastructure.

Report submission by 2027

"The committees have also been asked to assess the physical condition of the assets, availability of basic amenities and their suitability for alternative public purposes based on local requirements and the report will have to be submitted by December 2027," he said. He said possible alternative uses include training centres, health centres, and other community or public-service facilities.

Barman said the exercise does not amount to a blanket decision to shut or convert zero-enrolment schools. He further said the state was working to address the imbalance in teacher deployment. The latest UDISE data shows that 6,769 schools in Bengal have only one teacher, catering to 2,29,569 students, the education official said, quoting data.