Riyaz Bhat
Srinagar, Mar 28: Over the past four years, nearly 3200 schools in Jammu and Kashmir were either functioning with less than ten or zero student enrolment—leaving over 2500 teachers deployed in empty schools.
The latest figures revealed in the Legislative Assembly reveal that 3192 schools in Jammu and Kashmir reported less than ten or zero enrolment since 2022 including 1494 schools in Jammu and 1698 in Kashmir region respectively.
the house was also informed that 2518 teachers were posted in these schools including 1934 teachers in 1494 schools of Jammu division and 584 teachers in 1698 institutions of Kashmir region.
In 2024 it was reported that nearly 4400 government run schools were closed in Jammu and Kashmir owing to ‘zero or extremely low’ enrolment of students.
In the year there were a total of 23,117 government run schools in Jammu and Kashmir out of which 4394 were deleted from the UDISE data.
An official said that the count of overall public schools in Jammu and Kashmir reduced because “There were some government schools that were having zero or extremely low students enrolment. Those schools were merged with the nearby public schools.”
The official figures reveal that the primary schools category of government schools was hit badly wherein the count of overall public schools in Jammu and Kashmir reduced by nearly 30 percent.
In 2024, the official figures had revealed that a total of 12,977 government primary schools were functioning in Jammu and Kashmir. However, after the merger, only 8966 primary schools were functional.
Similarly, 392 government middle schools, three high schools and one higher secondary were deleted from the UDISE+ list.
Stating the statistics of private and other schools, the official figures had also revealed that there were a total of 5688 such educational institutes out of which only 5555 schools were functional till July-2024.
Overall, Jammu and Kashmir used to have over 28,800 government and private schools. However, as per the official figures, the count has reduced to nearly 24,00 schools.
