Representative image of a teacher.
Credit: iStock Photo
Bengaluru: The state government has appointed 308 teachers to 270 schools that have no students, according to the Union government’s Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE+) report released for the academic year 2024-25.
Despite teacher shortage at some schools having high student enrolment, the government has retained 308 teachers at schools which have failed attract any students. However, compared to the previous year, the number of teachers deployed at ‘no student’ schools has reduced from 1,572 to 308. The number of schools with zero enrolment have also dropped from 1,078 to 270.
However, defending the deployment of teachers at schools with no students, officials from the School Education and Literacy department said, “This is basically to attract admissions and in keeping with the government’s policy of not closing any schools. It is hoped that if we have teachers, then parents will consider sending their children.”
There are also schools where the government is providing teachers to schools which have a single student, officials added.
“As there is a lack of access to schools due to geographical issues in some of regions, it is necessary for the government to appoint teachers at such schools. Also, since the government cannot abolish the post, it is possible that the post may have been allocated to particular schools during the survey though teacher may have been deputed elsewhere,” opined V P Niranjanaradhya, Development Educationist.
According to the UDISE+ 2024-25 report, Karnataka has 7,349 schools with 2.23 lakh students but with a single teacher. Last year, there were over 7,821 single-teacher schools with an enrolment of 2,74,814 students.
Looking at the percentage of students strength (all management) 8.1% schools have admissions of less than 10 students and 11.7% have between 11 and 20 while 6% schools have a student strength above 500.
Karnataka has 74,859 schools with enrolment of 1,17,80,251.