A whopping number of 1,917 primary schools under the School and Mass Education Department are now running with a single teacher each in 29 districts. Jharsuguda, however, has no such school.
School and Mass Education Minister Debi Prasad Mishra informed this in the State Assembly in response to a question of Ranendra Pratap Swain on Thursday.
Rayagada district has the highest 437 single teacher primary schools, followed by Koraput 350, Kalahandi 270, Malkangiri 114, Balangir 104 and Keonjhar 100. Similarly, Cuttack district has 92 such schools, Kendrapada 65, Bargarh 45, Kandhamal 43, Jajpur 29, Nabarangpur 42, Subarnapur 31, Gajapati and Ganjam districts each 27, Puri 25, Mayurbhanj 23, Sundargarh 19, Bhadrak 13, Baleswar 12, Jagatsinghpur and Nayagarh nine each, Khordha eight, Nuapada five, Angul, Dhenkanal and Boudh four each and Deogarh and Sambalpur have three such schools each.
The Minister said steps are being taken to maintain student-teacher ratio in order to provide quality education in primary schools under the Right to Education Act.
In response to a related question of Congress’s Naba Kishore Das, the Minister informed that while a total of 81,04, 890 children in the age group of 6-14 years had been enrolled in schools in 2014-15, of them 4,716 students had left schools midway.
The State has been conducting Child Census each year since 2005-06 for tracking children in the 6-14 years age group, Mishra said.