Female teachers outnumber male teachers in school education: Report

For the first time in the country, female teachers have outnumbered their male counterparts in schools.

The female dominance, however, is only in primary school (1-5 class) level, while the male teachers continue to dominate the upper (6-8 class) and secondary (8-12 class) school teaching.

This is one of the several findings of the Unified District Information system for education Plus (USISE+) 2019-20 report released by the Union government recently.

According to the report, India has 96.87 lakh teachers in more than 15 lakh schools catering to the educational needs of over 26.5 crore students.

The 96.87 lakh teachers is an increase of more than 2.5 lakh teachers compared to 2018-19 (94.3 lakh). Of the total teachers, 49.2 lakh are female while the remaining 47.7 lakh are male teachers. In 2012-13 the country had 35.8 lakh female teachers and 42.4 lakh male teachers.

The report also says that there has been an increase of 1.6% in enrolment of students at schools compared to last year. A total of 25.09 crore students had enrolled for primary to higher secondary education in 2019-20. Of this, 13.01 crore are boys and 12.08 are girls. Compared to last year more than 26 lakh students have enrolled in schools.

According to the report, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary school enrolment has increased, showing an improvement in the ability of the system to retain more children in school education.

The report states that one of the main reasons for the improvement in the enrolment of students is the improvement in facilities at schools. The report claims that 96.97% of schools in India have girls toilets, which has increased from 67.8% in 2012-13.

However, access to computers and the internet remains worryingly low in the country as only 38% of the schools have computers (22.2 % in 2012-13) and 22.3% of schools have internet access, which was just 6.2 in 2012-13.

Seventh in country

With 77,166 schools, Karnataka ranks seventh at the national level in the total number of schools, which is topped by Uttar Pradesh (2.54 lakh), Madhya Pradesh (1.33 lakh,) Maharashtra (1.10 lakh), Rajasthan (1.06 lakh), West Bengal (95K) and Bihar (90K).

Of the total schools in the state, 49,834 are government schools, 7,244 are government-aided schools and 20,069 are private schools. A total of 1.21 crore students are studying in these schools, of which 58.80 lakh are girls and 62.58 lakh are boys.

A total of 4.50 lakh teachers are engaged in imparting lessons in these schools, of which 2.10 are government teachers, 46,366 teachers at government-aided schools, and 1.93 lakh are private school teachers. Of the total school teachers in State, 2.5 lakhs are women.

The state’s pupil to teacher ratio is also higher than the national average in the primary and upper schools. There is one teacher for every 20.9 primary school students (India 26.5); a teacher for every 16.1 upper school students (India 18.5). However, in higher schools, there is one teacher for every 31.1 students whereas the national average is 26.1.

The report also paints a happy picture for government schools in State. Of the total 49,834 government schools in State 99.46% of schools have electricity connections, 99.75 % have drinking water facilities, 98.46 % have boys toilets and 99.51 % have girls toilets. 46817 have a library, 49,522 schools conducted medical check-up while 18,174 schools have computer facility while only 3862 government school has an internet connection.

The report says that 1.2% of the students drop out of school at primary level, 2.5% at upper school level, while 16.8 at higher secondary school level. Nearly 19.4% of boys do not make it to college.