There are a total of 12,339 primary and 2796 upper primary schools in Uttarakhand.
The number of students in these schools has witnessed a sharp decrease in last few years. To find solution of the problem the state government decided to either close the schools with less student enrollment or merge these schools. However the Right to Education (RTE) act has served as a saving grace for the department.
The act mandates that a school should be in a radius of one km of the students which means that the schools located in an area where there is no school within the stipulated area under the RTE act would not get closed down despite low student strength.
