Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday said the current administration in Uttar Pradesh has shut down more than 26,000 government primary schools since assuming power in 2017, alleging that this was done to deny education to children from the PDA (Backwards, Dalit, Minority) communities.
Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters here, Yadav said the Samajwadi Party would raise the issue during the Monsoon Session of the Assembly, which would begin on Monday.
The former chief minister claimed that according to official data, Uttar Pradesh had 1,13,938 government primary schools until March 2017, when the BJP came to power.
More than 26,000 of them have been closed ever since, he said.
The highest number of closures took place in Lakhimpur Kheri, where 758 schools were shut, followed by Sitapur (650) and Prayagraj (638). In Gorakhpur, the home district of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, around 500 primary schools were closed, he said.
Pointing out that a majority of students in government primary schools belong to Other Backward Classes and Scheduled Castes, Yadav alleged that the BJP did not want children from the PDA communities to receive education.
The SP chief said that enrolment in government primary schools has declined from 1.17 crore students in 2017 to around 89 lakh in 2026.
Of this 89 lakh, about 25 lakh students belong to OBC, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe categories. The number of teachers in these schools has also fallen from around 4 lakh in 2017 to 3.40 lakh at present, while nearly 81,000 teaching posts remained vacant, he said.
Yadav alleged that the administration was reducing teaching posts because it did not want to provide permanent government jobs, as regular recruitment would require budgetary allocations and implementation of reservation policies.
He said the closure of government primary schools has adversely affected girls' education, with the number of girls studying in these schools declining from 61.57 lakh in March 2017 to around 45 lakh now.
Thousands of government schools continue to lack basic infrastructure, he said, stating that around 7,000 schools have no electricity, about 2,300 have no toilets for girls, 576 lack drinking water facilities and nearly 23,000 have no provision for computer education.
Yadav said all Samajwadi Party legislators would jointly raise the issue in the Assembly on Monday and corner the government on issues such as education, paper leaks, law and order, and alleged corruption.
(With inputs from PTI)
