Teacher shortage? Data exposes myth

A report by the Ministry of Education stating that 8,000 schools with zero enrolments were employing over two lakh teachers should come as a surprise for all those who have laboured under the ubiquitous (mis)belief that it is severe shortage of teachers that is the bane of the schools education in India.

The National Education Policy 2020 had framed the acute shortage of educators as ‘the learning crisis’ and attributed it in part to high pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) driven by an estimated shortfall of one million teachers in govt elementary schools.

So pervasive has been the belief that it has found repeated mention in the Parliament. Even a UNESCO report had ranked India second only to Nigeria among 74 countries facing critical teacher deficits.

However, in the light of the facts highlighted by the report, one may have to revisit ground situation which has undergone a sea change during the last six decades due to proliferation of small, often single room institutions in pursuance of the recommendation of the 1966 Kothari Commission report which had pleaded for a school within one kilometres regardless of terrain.

During then and now, rapid growth of private schools has drained away a good chunk of children from the govt schools. Secondly, the private schools have been directed to reserve 25% of their students for children from disadvantaged sections which may have left the public schools emptier.

Private schools are reimbursed for the children that are admitted through this channel. Thirdly, declining fertility rates--particularly in five southern states have reduced the potential intake in schools thereby triggering public school attrition.

Yet another factor, often ignored by surveyors is inflation of enrolment in rural schools by teachers who wouldn’t like to be shifted.