Over 1 lakh Indian schools still without electricity: NITI aayog report raises concern

A new report by NITI Aayog has revealed serious problems in India’s government school system. Thousands of schools across the country still do not have basic facilities like electricity, toilets, water supply, and enough teachers, as per Niti Aayog’s ‘School Education System In India’ report.

As per report, around 1.19 lakh schools in India still do not have functional electricity. Nearly 98,592 schools do not have working girl’s toilets, while 61,540 schools have no usable toilets at all. Around 14,505 schools do not have proper water supply, and 59,829 schools lack handwashing facilities.

Moreover, only 51.7% of government secondary schools have science laboratories. These shortages are affecting the quality of education, especially in rural areas.

As many as 1,04,125 schools are being run by only one teacher, and most of these schools are in rural areas. States like Bihar, Jharkhand, and Madhya Pradesh have the highest teacher vacancies. In Jharkhand, the student-teacher ratio in secondary schools is as high as 47:1.

The report also raises concern about student dropouts after primary education. The national secondary school dropout rate is 11.5%. West Bengal has the highest dropout rate at 20%, followed by Arunachal Pradesh and Karnataka at 18.3%. Assam also recorded a high dropout rate of 17.5%.

In addition, nearly 7,993 schools in the country have zero student enrolment. West Bengal and Telangana have the highest number of such ‘ghost schools’ (government schools with zero student enrollment).