Though the successive state governments in Himachal Pradesh have been making claims to improve quality education in government schools and spending huge amounts on developing human resources, strangely nearly 400 schools are running without even a single teacher.
This figure has been revealed by Education Minister of the state Rohit Thakur, who said, “Nearly 400 schools are without a teacher while 3,100 to 3,200 schools have just one teacher, of these schools about 80 per cent are primary schools.”
The educationists are seriously concerned about the situation. An educationist said, “What could be worse for students and parents of these schools and what education will they get, they questioned?
“The situation is very bad for the parents sending their wards to government schools in remote areas and those who cannot afford sending their wards to private schools,” they add.
This has been reflected in a data recently released by a government agency which said, “The number of students in government schools is falling drastically as more and more students are shifting to private schools and roughly the number of students has halved.”
The minister said, “The government is trying to address the situation through new appointments, rationalization of staff and merging schools having an extremely low enrolment of students, besides recruiting around 2,200 JBTs and TGTs, who will be appointed in schools without a teacher or facing shortage of teachers.”
He said, “Since higher classes are suffering more due to shortage of teachers, the government is also rationalizing nearly 700 schools.”