A total of 196 primary and upper primary schools have so far been closed due to very low enrolment of students in the State, informed School and Mass Education Minister Debi Prasad Mishra in the Assembly on Thursday.
Replying to a question by BJD’s Pravat Ranjan Biswal and many other members belonging to both Opposition and ruling parties, the Minister said these schools have been closed in 26 districts barring Baleswar, Bhadrak, Jajpur and Nabarangpur.
He said no Government high school has come to a closure position due to dearth of students.
The Government has been making all efforts to instill confidence in students towards Government high schools.Informing that vocational education has already been introduced in 30 schools in 30 districts, the Minister said the Government has targeted to introduce the course in 150 schools in 2016-17.
By the end of 2017-18, the course would be introduced in at least one school in each of 314 blocks.
Regarding dropout of ST students at primary level, the Minister said the dropout has come down from 72.57 per cent a decade ago to 5.35 per cent now.
The Minister informed that 45,545 high schools students had been given cycles last year.
Congress MlAs Tara Prasad Bahinipati, Subal Sahu and Dr Prafulla Majhi, BJP MlAs Pradip Purohit and Rabi Narayan Nayak and BJD MlAs Padmanav Behera, Basanti Mallick, Samir Ranjan Dash, Ranendra Pratap Swain, Amar Prasad Satpathy and Mahesh Sahoo participated in the discussion.