Gurgaon: After closing over 2,500 state-run schools in the past three years, the Haryana government is now finalising a list to permanently close over 1,000 schools that have 25 or fewer students enrolled. In Gurgaon, the move will lead to the closure of some 43 schools where around 650 students are currently studying. The department has asked all the districts to submit an updated list of all such schools by this week.
Of these 1,057 schools in the state, 743 are primary schools and 314 middle schools, officials said. Similarly, of the 43 schools in Gurgaon that have appeared in the first list, 32 are primary schools with around 438 students and 11 are middle schools with over 200 students. Out of these 43 schools, over 13 have less than 10 students enrolled and five have no students at all.
An education department official told TOI, “This is a regular exercise carried out by the department. Schools with fewer students put stress on resources so we try to rationalise it by merging. That way we also ensure healthy students to teachers ratio in other schools. We have directed all the schools to comply with the orders, and will submit the data in a day or two.”
Last year, TOI reported that the government was contemplating shutting down over 1,000 schools in the state in a bid to “rationalise the resources”. The exercise was deferred after the teachers protested against the decision. The department had given them time to increase the enrollment before finally undertaking the merging exercise.
Teachers, however, have contested that it violates the Right to Education (RTE) Act that mandates the availability of schools within a one km radius.
They argued that many girls don’t enroll in schools or drop out due to unavailability of schools in the vicinity and their parents don’t allow them to travel.
“It took so much time to get sanctions for these schools and merging them instead of evolving them is not a good move. As per the RTE, there should be schools within one kilometre for every student. And if schools are merged at this rate, then it’s really concerning,” said Dushyant Thakran, district head of Haryana Prathmik Shikshak Sangh.
