The Himachal Pradesh government has decided to close 99 primary schools with enrollment of less than five students, fearing the low student strength may hamper holistic growth of the children.
The state cabinet has approved the proposal to shift the students of these schools to other schools in adjoining areas.
According to a senior official of the state Education Department, in order to facilitate primary education, the government has been opening schools at the door step without doing any need-based survey. However, this exercise has proved counterproductive as enrollments were abysmally low.
In Himachal Pradesh, there are more than 10,700 schools with more than 25,000 teachers. The student enrollment in these schools is 3,23,387 and the teacher-student ratio is 12.95.
Although the teacher-student ratio in the state is satisfactory, out of all the schools 1,343 have only one teacher while 6,324 schools are being managed by only two teachers, according to the U-Dise report for 2015-16.
