Staff Reporter
Guwahati: Assam has fallen behind the national average in the availability of integrated science laboratories in secondary schools, according to the latest UDISE+ 2025-26 report released by the Union Ministry of Education.
The UDISE+ report indicates that only 46.6% of Assam's secondary schools have integrated science laboratory facilities, compared to the national average of 57.6%, leaving Assam 11 percentage points below the country's overall average.
Assam has 9,822 secondary schools, but only 4,573 schools are equipped with integrated science laboratories. Among government schools, the state performs relatively better, with 3,244 of 4,611 schools (70.1%) having science labs, compared to the national average of 52.2%. However, the situation is alarming in government-aided and private schools. Only 1.6% of government-aided schools, which is just 9 out of 576 secondary schools and 31%, or 1320 of 4264 private unaided schools in Assam, have integrated science labs, far below the national averages of 64.2% and 62.2%, respectively.
The report also says that among major states, Odisha (80.7%), Chhattisgarh (79.9%), Tamil Nadu (79.0%), Punjab (76.4%), and Maharashtra (76.3%) have some of the highest science lab coverage in secondary schools. At the other end, Rajasthan (26.8%), Bihar (27.7%), West Bengal (34.1%), Tripura (34.8%), and Meghalaya (35.4%) report lower availability than Assam.
It can be gauged from the report that availability of science laboratory facilities in Assam is less than that in 28 states of the country. This should come as a matter of great consternation to educationists and other concerned circles in the state.
While science laboratory facilities have expanded across the country, infrastructure development has not kept pace with the growth in the number of secondary schools, resulting in gaps in laboratory access in many states like Assam.