Representative Image of a school classroom.
Credit: iStock Photo
New Delhi: In a striking mismatch of resources and usage, nearly 8,000 schools across India recorded no student enrolments during the 2024-25 academic session, and yet, had over 20,000 teachers on their payroll.
According to data released by the Ministry of Education (MoE), a total of 20,817 teachers were engaged in these institutions that did not have a single child on the roster. West Bengal had the highest number of such schools with the state alone accounting for 3,812 schools without any students and 17,965 teachers assigned to them.
Telangana accounted for the second largest numbers (2,245 schools), followed by Madhya Pradesh (463 schools). In Telangana, these zero-enrolment schools had 1,016 teachers attached; in Madhya Pradesh, 223 teachers.
Some states reported no schools with zero enrollments. These include Haryana, Maharashtra, Goa, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. Among union territories, Delhi, Puducherry, Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Daman and Diu also reported none such cases.
The aggregated figure for zero-enrolment schools — 7,993 in 2024-25 — shows a decline from 12,954 in the previous academic year, marking a drop of nearly 38 per cent.
A senior Ministry official noted that since education is a state subject, state governments have been advised to address this issue by merging schools, optimising infrastructure, and rationalising staff deployment.
Additionally, there are over 1 lakh schools which had only one teacher, with Andhra Pradesh accounting for the highest such schools, followed by Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Lakshadweep. In all, over 33 lakh students were in these schools.