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Nine teachers for 27 students weigh heavy on exchequer

The state government is under a debt of Rs 50,000 crore and has no funds even to pay the salaries of its employees. At the same time, hundreds of schools, blindly opened under political considerations in the state with low strength of students, have become a big liability on the state exchequer.

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Ravinder Sood 

The state government is under a debt of Rs 50,000 crore and has no funds even to pay the salaries of its employees. At the same time, hundreds of schools, blindly opened under political considerations in the state with low strength of students, have become a big liability on the state exchequer. 

Government High School, Langha, 9 km from Palampur, is not the lone educational institution of the district, where the state government has appointed nine teachers for 27 students. 

There are over one dozen schools around Palampur town within a radius of 2 km, where the strength of students is less than 40, but still the government has appointed adequate teaching staff in these schools. In the absence of students, most of the teachers come to these institutions in the morning and go back in the evening without justifying their salaries drawn from the state exchequer. 

On an average, there is one teacher against three students, which is a rare example in the state. Similar is the situation in other schools, including at Bhaghotla and Thalla, where the strength of students is less than 40. 

Langha was a middle school till 2017, but it was upgraded hurriedly to a high school before the Assembly elections by the previous government without looking into the strength of students and other infrastructure. Despite best efforts, the strength of the school did not increase above 27 in the past two years. The government has appointed one principal and eight teachers along with two class IV employees, including a cook to prepare mid-day meal for students. 

The Tribune team visited Government High School, Langha, which is situated on a 1 kanal land and has poor infrastructure. There is no scope for its expansion in future as well as the adjoining land falls in the reserve forestland and cannot be transferred to the state government. 

However, there is also a private school next to the government school, which is up to fifth standard and has adequate strength. Because of high dropout rate, the strength of government school has come down to 27. 

Villagers say because of better education standard, they prefer to send their children to private schools. Mid-day meal is no consideration for villagers, but they want better education without minding paying hefty fee. 

The annual salary budget of Langha school is over Rs 50 lakh, which means the government spends over Rs 1.80 lakh per student, per year, which is more than the cost of MBBS students produced in government medical colleges. 

In 2011, the PK Dhumal government planned to set up cluster schools within a radius of 5 km in the state by merging all schools with low strength, so that government funds could be saved. It was proposed that the government will provide transport facilities to students for free, which was one of the major issues addressed by the government. A high-level committee headed by senior bureaucrat Deepak Sanan had already given its recommendations to the state government in this regard and suggested for the immediate closure of all such schools. 

However, in 2012 the Congress government was voted to power, which reversed the decision of PK Dhumal government and reopened most of such schools, which has today become a huge burden on the state exchequer with fewer students. It has become difficult for government to go ahead with such uneconomical educational institutions. 

Unfortunately, over one year has passed but the new BJP government headed by Jai Ram Thakur has also not taken any policy decision either to close these schools or create cluster schools to save the hard-earned money of tax payers, which is being wasted. 

A senior officer of the state Education Department, while talking to The Tribune, admitted that there were many such low strength schools, not only in Kangra district, but all over the state. State government is well versed with the situation and necessary details have already been submitted to senior officers in this regard from time to time. He said the state government wanted to close or merge such schools, so that financial burden on the state exchequer was reduced. A number of meetings were held in this regard with the Education Minister and the final decision is expected before March 31, 2020. He said such schools were opened by completing all legal formalities, teachers were appointed accordingly, therefore it was not easy to close such schools.

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