Single teacher schools a shame

Ministry of Education report stating that over 33 lakh children study in over one lakh singleteacher schools presents a distressful picture of the state of primary education in the country. Learning outcomes can be a matter of guess in schools where a single teacher has to manage kids enrolled in various classes of a primary school.

Even a casual assessment would reveal that the kids receive no more than cacophony in an environment where the teacher has to focus on disciplining the students all the time than engaging in pedagogy. It would be a fair guess that kids from such schools would drop out early and the rudimentary learning that they carry would barely encourage them, or their parents or guardians, to continue their schooling. In most cases, they would revert to illiteracy.

This being the fate of over 33 lakh kids as of now, one could well imagine the reality of statistics pertaining to literacy, mean years of school (MYS) and learning outcome doled out regularly by those managing school education. The dreadful reality emerging from the latest report urges serious attention and a cogent strategy to see that no child is deprived of the opportunity to acquire the three Rs of learning. It calls for possible merger of schools, provision of transport, expansion of infrastructure to satisfy numbers and filling up vacancies