Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI: Education Minister Dr Ranoj Pegu informed the state assembly today that the state government allocated around 20 per cent of the total budget outlay in 2026-27 in the inclusive education sector, and it is around four per cent of the SGDP (State Gross Domestic Product).
Responding to a cut motion on the grants for school education, the minister said, "Around 73 per cent of the students in the state study in government schools. It's above the national average. The state government is taking responsibility for around 44,000 schools and about 50 lakh students studying in them. In the past five years, the state government has spent a staggering Rs 15,000 crore on developing school infrastructure."
The opposition, mainly the Congress, criticized the government for the amalgamation of schools, lopsided teacher-pupil ratio, high dropout rate, less enrolment of students in government schools, lack of adequate number of teachers, etc.
In his reply, the minister said, "What we are doing for the development of education in the state is in accordance with the RTE (Right to Education) Act enacted by the UPA government in 2009. I appeal to the opposition to point out if we have violated the RTE Act. Education always seeks to be above politics. To strengthen the public education system, we must all collaborate. The RTE Act spells out in clear terms that there should be an LP school within a one-km radius, an ME school within a radius of three km, and a high school within a radius of five km. We have not closed schools. We have amalgamated them based on distance. If a school has less than 30 students, that needs to be merged with its nearest school. We have sought views from all MLAs on schools that have fewer than 30 students."
The minister said, "To improve the monitoring mechanism, we're streamlining the educational ecosystem, such as by setting up a Vidya Samiksha Kendra, a centralised system for monitoring and evaluating the key performance indicators of school education. If a student is absent from school for five consecutive days, we contact the school authority and the parents through this Kendra to enquire about the reasons for the absence. We've sent one crore such messages to around one crore parents."
On teacher appointments, the minister said, "It's a continuous process. In the past five years we appointed 91,655 teaching and non-teaching staff in schools. To maintain the teacher-student ratio, we are contemplating school-specific appointments in hilly terrains, sars and far-flung areas. Many schools do not have headmasters. Because of a pending court case, the government cannot appoint them."
The minister acknowledged that the fall in enrolment in government schools from class I to V is due to people becoming financially affluent. "When they can afford the cost of education, they rush to their nearest private schools. On the contrary, we have records of around 10,000 students coming to government schools from private institutions. The government has already set up 500 new schools and renovated 500 others. We're going to set up 500 more new schools in the coming five years," he said.
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