Number of school teachers in schools reached 1 cr for the first time in 2024-25: Report. Ministry of Education

Total number of school teachers in the nation reached the one crore figure for the very first time in any given year of schooling in the year 2024-25, as per figures released by the Ministry of Education's UDISE.

Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) Plus is an education department data gathering website to receive school education data from every nook and corner of the country.

"Enhanced recruitment of teachers is a welcome step towards enhanced pupil-teacher ratios, quality education, and removal of regional disparities in teacher availability. The numbers are rising steadily since 2022-23 and the current reporting year.".

"There is a growth of 6.7 pc number of teachers during the current report year in comparison to 2022-23," said the report.

Pupil-Teacher Ratio (PTR) at the foundational, preparatory, middle and secondary levels is 10, 13, 17 and 21 respectively, all much improved ratios compared to National Education Policy's (NEP's) suggested ratio of 1:30, said UDISE Plus.

"This new PTR enables more individualized learning and increased interactions between teachers and students, leading to a better learning experience and enhanced academic performance," the report added further.

Preparatory, middle and secondary level dropouts were drastically down during the 2024-25 academic year compared to 2022-23 and 2023-24.

On the preparatory stage, the rate slowed from 3.7 pc to 2.3 per cent, on the middle stage from 5.2 per cent to 3.5 per cent and on the secondary stage from 10.9 per cent to 8.2 per cent compared to last year.

"The decline indicates better pupil retention and is proof of the effectiveness in retaining children at school. The steady declining across all levels indicates that schools are becoming increasingly responsive and supportive to the needs of the pupils, with fewer early school leavers from the system," commented further the report.

The year 2024-25 has witnessed the trend increasing of holding on to the students at each level of study -- preparatory, middle and secondary. Retentions have actually risen sharply when compared to previous year, rising by 98.0 per cent to 98.9 per cent at the foundation level, 85.4 per cent to 92.4 per cent at the preparatory level, 78.0 to 82.8 per cent at the middle level, and 45.6 per cent to 47.2 per cent at the secondary level.

"One of the principal motivating factors for improvement, especially at Secondary level, is an increase in the number of secondaries. The increase has boosted access and precipitated steady enrolment.

"Combined, increasing retention rates are an encouraging sign of improvement in the schooling system and indicate the effect of interventions of a particular type," the report added.

UDISE and Indian education system have also implemented the concept of zero enrolment, and the single teacher schools.

"All thanks to the willful and deliberate action of the government there has been a consistent fall in the number of zero enrolment schools as well as the single teacher schools. The findings of UDISE + are found to be helpful while planning and reasoning the deployment of teachers in the right proportion in the schools maintaining the cautious PTR in balance.".

"As can be plainly observed from statement single teacher schools decreased by about 6 pc in this reporting year compared to last year. Likewise, number of zero enrollment schools decreased considerably by about 38 pc," it further added.