Himachal Pradesh continues to grapple with the challenge of single-teacher schools, with 2,964 institutions – 17.1 percent of the total – run by just one teacher, according to the Ministry of Education’s Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) Plus 2024-25 report released on August 28.
Such schools have enrolled 46,329 students. However, the number of single-teacher schools in the state has decreased from 2023-24 with 3,473 such schools enrolling 65,819 students.
Still, 184 schools in the state lack functional girls’ toilets, 273 don’t have functional boys’ toilets, and 167 don’t have functional electricity. A mere 5,140 (29.7 per cent) schools are equipped with toilet facilities for Children With Special Needs (CWSN).
Of 17,330 schools in the state, 10,390 are at the primary level, 2,422 upper-primary, 1,775 secondary, and 2,743 are at the higher secondary level.
There are 14,725 government schools, 2,603 private unaided schools, and two fall under the other category. There are 8.02 lakh students enrolled in government schools in 2024-25, a 3.6 per cent decrease from the previous year.
The UDISE report has revealed the poor infrastructure in government schools of HP. More than 30 per cent of government schools lack a functional computer facility for pedagogical purposes while over 40 per cent don’t have internet facilities.
A mere 3,083 (20.9 per cent) government schools have a co-curricular activity room or arts and crafts room facility available.
There are 3,001 government schools with secondary sections. But 721 schools don’t have an integrated science lab facility available.
Additionally, only 5.2 per cent of government schools and 10.7 per cent of private schools have tinkering labs.
When it comes to digital libraries, only 1.6 per cent of government schools and 7.1 per cent of private ones have the facility. Just 1.9 per cent of government schools have functional laptops; however, nearly 40 percent of schools have functional tablets.
Just 23 per cent of government schools have projectors, while the figure for private schools is nearly double at 44.2 per cent.
Over 48 per cent of schools have functional smart classrooms used for teaching, equipped with digital boards, smartboards, virtual classrooms, or smart TV availability, while the figure for private schools is 53.4 per cent.
A mere 24.1 per cent government schools are using mobile phones for teaching, while the figure for private schools is lower at 23.4 per cent.
There are 4,782 government schools with upper primary, secondary, and higher secondary sections; however, only 40.6 percent of these schools have functional ICT labs.