As many as 27,099 government schools in the country still do not have proper buildings, reveals data shared by the Ministry of Education. However, these schools account only for 2.6 per cent in the country, which has 10,32,570 government schools. Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan had said this in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, while answering a question by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP KRN Rajeshkumar.
Assam has the maximum number of schools with 'kuchcha buildings' — 6,554. However, this accounts to only 13.9 per cent of schools in the state. Another North Eastern state Manipur has 23.9 per cent of its schools functioning without proper buildings, the highest in the country. Incidentally, Manipur also has the highest primary student drop-out rate in the country — 8.77 per cent. Close to Manipur is Sikkim, where 22.3 per cent of the schools function out of kuchcha buildings.
At the same time, the data says that Goa is the only state with no kuchcha building schools. The state has 827 schools and a very low drop out rate among primary and Upper Primary students (0.27 and 0 per cent respectively). Among the Union Territories, Delhi, Daman and Diu, Chandigarh and Puducherry have no kuchcha building schools. However, 19.2 per cent schools of the two-year-old Union Territory Ladakh have schools functioning in makeshift schools.
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Answering the same question, Pradhan said, "The recruitment, service conditions and redeployment of teachers are primarily in the domain of the respective State Government and UT Administration," he added, "Under the Samagra Shiksha scheme, which is an overarching scheme for school education covering all levels from pre-primary to senior secondary, financial assistance is provided to the States and UTs for various activities to reduce dropouts at all levels, which include opening/strengthening of new schools up to senior secondary level, strengthening school infrastructure, setting up, upgradation and running of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBV) upto class 12, setting up of residential schools/hostels named Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Avasiya Vidyalayas, transport allowance, undertaking enrollment drives, seasonal hostels/ residential camps, provision of vocational education and ICT facilities in schools, etc, financial assistance is also provided for aids and appliances for children with special needs."
