SRINAGAR: Due to the zero or low enrolment of students in government schools, the total number of public schools in Jammu and Kashmir has decreased by nearly 19 percent.
Senior officials from the department informed the news agency KNO, “We had some government schools with very low student enrolment, some even with fewer than five students. We merged them with nearby government schools.”
They also mentioned that these schools were previously listed separately on UDISE. “Previously, we had 23,117 government schools according to UDISE, but in the updated database, there are only 18,820 schools.”
“We had almost 4,300 government schools with fewer than five or zero student enrolments,” the official stated, clarifying that there are no longer any government schools with zero enrolment.
“In recent months, we have been in contact with the Ministry of Education (MoE), and schools with insufficient or zero student enrolments have been removed from the UDISE data,” the official noted.
He explained that schools with less than five student enrolments are not present in the UDISE data, as they have already been merged and are now part of a single school complex. However, they were previously listed as separate entities in UDISE, and they have now been excluded from the data.
Notably, the School Education Department had previously identified more than 1,200 government schools with low student enrolment. These schools were expected to be merged based on the students’ catchment areas and feasibility.
In April 2022, the School Education Department had announced its plans to merge 720 government-run schools in Jammu and Kashmir due to inadequate student enrolments. (KNO)