MANGALURU: Despite the huge vacancies, the state has one of the best student-teacher ratio in government schools when compared to many big states of the country, according to the statistics shared by Union Minister of State for Education Jayant Choudhary.
In a reply to an unstarred question by Kolkata Dakshin MP Mala Roy in the Parliament on Monday, Choudhary said Karnataka’s student-teacher ratio or pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) is 7:1 in Anganwadis, class 1 and 2 (Foundational), 12:1 in class 3-5 (preparatory), 16:1 in class 6 to 8 (middle) and 21:1 in 9 to 12 (secondary). Except in Secondary, the state betters the national average in the first three levels. The national average for government schools at foundational is 9:1, preparatory 14:1, Middle 21:1 and Secondary 20:1.
Further, Karnataka has better PTR when compared to Kerala which has the highest literacy rate, Delhi where several reforms in the education sector have been introduced and when compared to developed states like Gujarat and Maharashtra. Gujarat’s PTR is 1:12, 1:18, 1:24 and 1:25 while that of Kerala is 1:12, 1:13, 1:25 and 1:19.
Among the bigger states, only southern states like Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh fare better than Karnataka. Telangana and AP have best PTR with 6, 11, 13 and 11 and 7, 12, 14 and 11 respectively. West Bengal has the worst PTR with 14, 16, 31 and 30 students for every teacher in the four levels.
The pupil-teacher ratio, as mandated in para 2.3 of the NEP, 2020 is 25:1 for areas having large numbers of socio-economically disadvantaged students and 30:1 for schools in other areas.
In 2023-24, the vacancies in the country stood at 1,24,262, according to vacancies reported by the states and UTs on PRABANDH in the portal of Department of School Education and Literary of Ministry of Education. Karnataka has 24,765 vacancies in elementary level and 7,251 vacancies in secondary level.