Bengal may soon witness the closure of a large number of primary and upper primary schools with low enrollment.

The ministry of education (MoE) has asked the Bengal government to go for rationalisation of schools, under which schools with low enrollment are closed, and the students are transferred to the school in the nearby locality.

A decision to this effect has been taken in the meeting of the Project Approval Board (PAB) with respect to the Samagra Shiksha scheme for Bengal for 2026-27. The meeting was held on June 12 and chaired by the secretary of the department of school education and literacy, MoE. It was attended by Binod Kumar, additional chief secretary of Bengal.

“A concern was raised regarding 5309 single teacher schools, 13,186 with less than 30 enrolments and 4564 with less than 15 enrolment schools, out of 66,675 primary schools. At the upper primary level, out of the total 6,333 schools, 878 are single teacher schools, 165 with less than 30 enrolment and 849 with less than 5 enrolments,” said the minutes of the meeting.

“In addition, the number of schools with adverse PTR (Pupil-Teacher Ratio) at the primary level is 25% while it is 31% at the upper primary level. State needs to ensure rationalization of such schools, focus on strategic teacher recruitment, and expedite school upgradation wherever land is available,” it added.

The Union government has been asking the states to undertake rationalisation of schools. In 2016, a group of secretaries supported the proposal for the consolidation of schools with low enrolment. In 2017, NITI Aayog supported it in the name of rationalisation. Since then, the rationalisation exercise has been going on across states. When Mamata Banerjee was chief minister, nearly 8,000 schools were closed in Bengal.

A recent NITI Aayog report ‘School Education System in India: Temporal Analysis and Policy Roadmap for Quality Enhancement’ quoted the government’s data of 2024-25 and said there were 3,812 schools in Bengal with zero enrolment, where 17,965 teachers were posted in 2024-25. Across the country, there were 7,993 such zero-enrolment schools. Bengal topped among states in zero-enrolment schools.

“While these schools appear operational in administrative records, they no longer serve any student population. These schools, despite zero enrolment, continue to receive financial and human resources due to the lack of updating of records, showing the difference between on-ground reality and planning,” said the NITI Aayog report.

This report said nearly one lakh government schools had been closed between 2014 and 2024 across India.

Mitra Ranjan, an education activist and coordinator of Right To Education Forum, an organisation working for implementation of the Right To Education (RTE) Act, said the government must carry out a mapping exercise to understand what children were doing if they were not enrolled in schools.

“It is not possible that all the children are enrolled in private schools. Then what are they doing if they are not enrolled in government schools? The government needs to map these children and prepare a strategy on how to bring them back to schools,” Ranjan said.

He referred to NITI Aayog’s initiative called Project Sustainable Action for Transforming Human Capital in Education (Project SATH-E) launched in 2017 on rationalisation of schools on a pilot basis in the states of Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.

“There is no evidence to suggest the quality of education and schools have improved in the areas where the pilot project was launched. Rather, closure of schools will severely disrupt the learning of children belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and minorities. Once the school is closed, most of these children will drop out, and their learning will end,” he said.

Ashok Agrawal, a lawyer and educationist, said the RTE Act provides for schools within a 1km radius in rural areas and 3km radius in urban areas. The merger and closure of schools amounts to a violation of the RTE Act.

“The children going to government schools are essentially from socially and economically weaker sections. They are at the receiving end. The government does not bother about them,” Agrawal said.

He said the government was unable to attract children because of poor teaching-learning activities.

“There are not adequate teachers. The existing teachers do not teach. There is a class difference between the teachers and children, which also contributes to poor teaching-learning activities. The government needs to address these issues,” Agrawal said.