Ukd govt to combine 3,000 state-owned schools with less than 10 pupils

DEHRADUN: In one of the first such initiatives of its kind in Uttarakhand, the state government is going to club together almost 3,000 schools which have a student strength of less than 10 each. State education minister Arvind Pandey told TOI that the list of schools having low student strength is ready and the process has been started to integrate multiple schools into a single unit which will have better facilities, more number of teachers and enhanced infrastructure.
Explaining the process behind the clubbing of schools, the state director general (DG) of school education, Captain Alok Shekhar Tiwari, said that if three out of five schools within a radius of 1-3 kilometres have less than 10 students, then four among these will be shut and merged into one unit. “The schools with less or zero number of students have been listed as 0, 0-5 and 0-10 categories. The first phase of shutting down zero student schools has already been initiated. It should be complete in this academic session itself.” He added that residential government schools will also be set up in each of the 95 blocks across the state. “These schools will provide hostel facilities to students from Class VI onwards,” Tiwari said.
Meanwhile, allaying fears that the closure or merger of schools will lead to loss of jobs, the education minister said that “teachers currently employed in schools having less number of pupils will not lose their jobs.”“Teachers do not need to worry as their jobs will be safeguarded. Our aim is to give children a chance at improved education facilities. We will also ensure that students in the hill districts do not have to travel long distances to reach their new schools,” Pandey said. He added that the clubbing exercise was “one of the methods to overhaul the state’s schooling scenario.” “We want government schools to be so good that students from financially weaker sections of society do not feel the need to consider taking admission in private schools.”