Jump in single-teacher govt schools in Haryana: Report

The number of single-teacher schools in Haryana has increased to 1,066 in 2024-25, with 43,400 enrolments in such schools, according to the Ministry of Education’s Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) Plus report.

In 2023-24, there were 867 single-teacher schools in the state with an enrolment of 40,828, and in 2022-23, there were 991 such schools with 49,236 students.

The report for 2024-25 was released on August 28.

Haryana has 23,494 schools, comprising 14,338 government schools, four government-aided schools, 8,499 private unaided schools, and 653 schools falling into other categories.

Enrolment in government schools has been declining over the years. It was 22 lakh in 2024-25 and 22.30 lakh in 2023-24. In 2022-23, it was 24.64 lakh. Here, the government schools also included Kendriya Vidyalayas, Navodaya Vidyalayas, and Sainik Schools, in addition to state-run schools.

Poor infrastructure

The report revealed that government schools are riddled with poor infrastructure. As many as 365 government schools did not have a functional computer facility for pedagogical purposes in 2024-25. More than 30% of schools lacked Internet facilities. However, when it came to private unaided schools, 94.5% had Internet facilities.

Only 68.2% of schools had functional Children With Special Needs (CWSN)-friendly toilets, while the percentage in private schools was 26.3%. There were over 1,800 schools that did not have ramps for CWSN. Further, there were 6,305 schools (44%) that did not have ramps with handrails for CWSN.

Of 14,338 government schools in the state, only 2,538 (17.7%) had co-curricular activity rooms/arts and crafts room facilities in 2024-25. There were 35% schools that did not have a kitchen garden.

There are 9,051 schools in the state with secondary sections, comprising 3,469 government schools, 5,538 private unaided schools, four government-aided schools, and 40 schools in other categories.

Of 3,469 government schools having secondary sections, 758 did not have an integrated science lab facility. Only 3.3% state-run schools had tinkering labs, while the figure for private unaided schools was 13.9%.

Digital initiatives

Only 16.3% government schools had projectors, revealed the report. Of 14,338 schools, only 6,101 had functional smart classrooms or smart boards or virtual classrooms or smart TV availability. It amounted to 42.6% of government schools, while functional smart classrooms were available in 63.9% private unaided schools. Only 21.6% of government schools had functional mobile phones for teaching purposes.

There were 5,683 government schools with upper primary, secondary and higher secondary sections. Of them, just 3,073 (54.1%) had ICT labs, while only 2,362 (41.6%) had functional ICT labs.

Less than 1% schools had digital libraries, as the facility was available in only 127 government schools.