Jharkhand: Students missing, educators overburdened in single-teacher schools, finds study

Struggling with absenteeism and a lack of engagement from educators, the single-teacher schools in Jharkhand’s Latehar district are depriving students of their fundamental right to elementary education, according to findings of a study published on Friday.

The study, prepared by the NREGA Sahayata Kendra in Latehar’s Manika block, found that in about 87.5% of such schools, no active teaching was taking place when surveyors made unannounced visits to the institutes.

A report on the findings of the study pointed out that 84% of the students in the schools come from the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe communities.

NREGA Sahayata Kendras in Jharkhand are help centres run by independent facilitators to guide residents in accessing entitlements under welfare programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

The survey was conducted between January and March to assess the functionality of single-teacher schools against the norms of the Right to Education Act. It covered 40 of the 55 single-teacher schools in the Manika block.

A single-teacher school is a violation of the Right to Education Act, which mandates at least two educators for a primary school and one teacher for every 30 students.

Nearly 8,000, or one-third of all government primary schools in Jharkhand, only have one teacher, said...

Read more

News