Rise in govt school enrolment impacts teacher-student ratio in Rajasthan

A significant rise in student enrolments in government schools has started impacting pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) and issues. The PTR has swelled to 42:1 for classes 9-12 against the norm of 30:1 provisioned under the right to Education Act.

Several government schools are experiencing infrastructure shortages like classrooms, playgrounds and labs to meet the requirements of the increased number of students. The figure says the state has 5,19,693 classrooms including 9,136 classes as dedicated computer labs, while 41,126 required repairs in the 2019-20 academic year.

Over the years, enrolments in government schools superseded private schools due to several reasons such as introduction of different categories of schools providing education better than usual schools and massive improvement in results which has helped to attract students from private schools. The report says the state has 3.98 lakh teachers in 70,031 government schools having a backlog of at least 1.5 lakh teachers.