HP forgets elementary lesson in school education: More isn’t better

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, February 14

Himachal had achieved the goal of making free and compulsory elementary education available for all children two decades ago, but new primary schools are still being opened across the state every year. It could have signaled a positive message had the already existing schools been upgraded or the new ones adequately equipped.

According to the District Information System for Education report, from 13,925 schools in 2004, the number has shot up to 15,300 in 2014 in the state. “Instead of strengthening the basic infrastructure and improving performance of the already existing schools, the government is focusing on opening more schools sans basic facilities,” said education expert Rakesh Kumar.

According to rules, any primary or upper primary school should have at least six to eight rooms, but the report says of the total 10,712 government primary schools in the state, seven don’t even have a building, 325 are running from a single room, 2,934 have two rooms and 4,028 have three. Though the report says the teacher-pupil ratio across the state is 1:13 at primary level, 943 primary schools have only one teacher for all students, 6,570 have two, 1,911 have three and 1,232 have four teachers.

A teacher of a primary school at Dharampur said the quality was deteriorating because the government was busy in meeting the norm of opening a school at every 1.5 km, which was leading to multi-grade teaching.

Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan project director RK Purthy said: “Infrastructure development and upgrade is an ongoing process. We will approach the Ministry of Human Resource Development on March 19 and seek more funds.”