As of December 2021, there has been a shortage of 19,000 classrooms in various state run primary schools admitted the Gujarat government in the legislative assembly.
Gujarat’s education minister, Mr Jitu Vaghani stated on Monday that they were planning on building these schools as soon as possible. The education minister stated that the state government had built 2,714 classrooms in the last 2 years.
Dahod district, which is dominated by the tribals, tops the list with a shortage of 1,688 classrooms followed by Banaskantha with 1,532 shortages, Bhavnagar with 966 shortages, Mehsana with 947 shortages and Sabarkantha with 941 shortages in total. It was also brought into notice that 23 state run schools didn’t have any electricity as of yet. 9 of these schools fall in the Gir-Somnath district, 7 in Porbandar, 3 in Morbi, 2 in Kutch and one each in Dwarka-Devbhumi and Surendranagar.
The government also informed the press that 272 private primary schools and 5,439 state run primary schools did not have a compound wall around their campuses.
The state government has announced that it will spend 937 crores for the construction of 10,000 classrooms in primary and secondary schools run by the government in the 2022-23 fiscal year.
Other than this, state MLAs also raised the concern of implementing the Right to Education Act (RTE) to which Vaghani pointed out that 1,43,164 students were granted education as opposed to 1,73,815 students in private schools in the last two years under the 2009 legislation. This act provides free and compulsory education to all aged 6-14 years.
The opposition pointed out that 30,651 students couldn’t secure any admission despite the legislation to which the education minister of the state said that parents often cancel the admission of their wards under the RTE if the school is not near their area of residence.
“Parents also cancel admission if they do not get a school of their choice. Some cancel the RTE admission claiming the school is far from their residence. These are some of the reasons for the gap in approved applications and actual admissions. Otherwise, our government is committed to implement the RTE Act in the state,” stated Va
