NATIONAL: 8,000 Schools Across India Have No Students!
A startling revelation from the Union Ministry of Education shows nearly 8,000 schools across India operated without a single student during the 2024-25 academic year.
Despite the emptiness, these institutions employed over 20,000 teachers, raising tough questions about resource allocation in the nation’s schooling system.
West Bengal tops the list with 3,812 such vacant schools, where 17,965 educators continue to draw salaries.
This anomaly underscores deeper challenges in rural and underserved areas, where migration and access issues often leave classrooms deserted.
Telangana follows closely with 2,245 empty schools staffed by 1,016 teachers, while Madhya Pradesh reports 463 such facilities employing 223 personnel.
The overall count of zero-enrollment schools has dipped by about 38% from the previous year, signaling some progress in consolidation efforts.
States and Territories Buck the Trend
Not every region grapples with this issue. Nine states, including Haryana, Maharashtra, Goa, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura, boast zero schools without students.
Union territories like Puducherry, Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Daman and Diu along with Dadra and Haveli, and Chandigarh also report no such cases.
These areas highlight effective strategies in enrollment drives and school management.
The ministry attributes the persistence of ghost schools to state-level policies on teacher postings, even as student batches graduate without replacements.
Officials urge mergers to redirect funds toward active learning environments.
Single-Teacher Schools Strain Resources
Shifting focus, over 33 lakh students attend more than 1 lakh single-teacher schools nationwide, averaging 34 pupils per educator.
This setup strains teaching quality and violates right to education norms for balanced pupil-teacher ratios.
Andhra Pradesh leads with 12,912 such schools, followed by Uttar Pradesh at 9,508 and Jharkhand with 9,172. Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Madhya Pradesh round out the top ranks, each exceeding 7,000 facilities.
In terms of enrollment numbers, Uttar Pradesh hosts the largest group at over 6.24 lakh students, trailed by Jharkhand’s 4.36 lakh and West Bengal’s 2.35 lakh.
These figures point to urgent needs for teacher redeployment to bolster instruction.
UDISE+ data for 2024-25, drawn from 1.47 million schools, reveals a 6% drop in single-teacher institutions, yet the scale remains daunting.
Experts call for targeted interventions to ensure every child receives comprehensive guidance.