Pupil-Teacher Ratio Of Govt Schools Improves: Edu Minister

The Minister of State for Education, Jayant Chaudhary, while responding to the question raised about the teacher-pupil ratio, said that the pupil-teacher ratio in government schools has decreased in the 2023-24 session in comparison to the last year’s session of 2022-23. As per the data given by the minister in Lok Sabha, highlighted that a significant number of nearly 10-12% was observed in comparison to the previous years.

In order to collect real-time data from schools, the Department of School Education and Literacy, Government of India, has developed the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) from the year 2018-19. The details regarding the improvement in the Pupil-Teacher Ratio of Government schools across the country in the previous years, as per the UDISE+ 2022-23 and 2023-24 reports.

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• As per the report, the ratio of pupils to teachers has gone down in primary schools by 12% with the ratio improving from 25 to 22 in primary schools.
• In Upper Primary Schools, the ratio improves from 23 to 21 with an overall reduction of 8 %.
• In Secondary schools, the ratio went from 18 to 15 with an overall decrease of 17%.
• In Higher Secondary schools, the ratio reached 22 from 26 earlier, with an overall improvement of 15%.

While responding to the improving teacher-pupil ratio in rural areas in other states, the Minister of State responded that “Education being a subject in the Concurrent List of the Constitution, an overwhelming majority of the schools in the country come under the administrative control of States/UTs. The recruitment and rational deployment of teachers come under the purview of the respective State Governments/UT Administrations”.

However, The Government through the Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Samagra Shiksha, provides financial assistance to the States and UTs to maintain appropriate Pupil- Teacher Ratio (PTR) for various levels of schooling, as per norms prescribed in the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, as amended from time to time.