Karnataka opened more than one government school a day over six years, reveals RTI

In the past six academic years, Karnataka has opened more than one government school a day, revealed RTI data. According to the data provided by the Ministry of Education, the state has opened a total of 2,416 schools from 2014-15 to 2019-20. At the same time, its neighbouring state Goa has opened only one new government school in this span. The RTI was filed by Vivek Pandey, a medical student from Madhya Pradesh.

Karnataka now has 50184 government schools, while Goa has 833 of them, the lowest among all states. Uttar Pradesh has the most number of government-run schools in the country — 1,63,142. At the same time, the state opened 1,998 new schools in the past six academic years. With 15,230 new government schools, the country currently has 10,83,747 government-run schools.

With a total of 1,22,056 schools, Madhya Pradesh has the second most number of government-run schools. The state also managed to open 2140 new schools in roughly 2190 days. The other states that opened more than a thousand schools in six years are — Rajasthan (2016), Odisha (1660), West Bengal (1289) and Gujarat (1041).  With 854 schools, Sikkim has the second-lowest number of government-run schools. Of all the Union Territories, Lakshadweep did not open any new school in the last six years and Chandigarh opened 11.  Delhi, on the other hand, opened 65 new schools and now has 2,784 of them.

While the trend appears positive, data released by the same ministry earlier in 2020 reveals that 17.1 per cent of the teaching posts in government schools across the country are vacant.  Bihar, which opened 883 new schools, has 2.7 lakh vacant posts, while Uttar Pradesh has 2.1 lakh.