Teacher shortage persists: 22 primary schools in Assam's Binnakandi run with just one teacher

The Assam government on July 9 informed the State Assembly that 22 primary schools in Binnakandi Assembly constituency are currently functioning with only a single teacher, even as the state has a total of 39,531 primary schools, according to the UDISE 2025–26 database.

Replying to a starred question by MLA Badruddin Ajmal, School Education Minister Ranoj Pegu said Assam has 33,232 Lower Primary (LP) schools and 6,299 Upper Primary (UP) schools. In Hojai district, there are 891 primary schools, including 745 LP schools and 146 UP schools.

The minister informed the House that Binnakandi constituency has 322 primary schools, comprising 276 Lower Primary and 46 Upper Primary schools, of which 22 are currently operating with only one teacher. The list of these schools and the teachers posted there has been attached as an annexure to the Assembly reply.

Addressing concerns over teachers being assigned election and other official duties, Pegu clarified that a school is generally classified as a single-teacher school when one of its two sanctioned teaching posts remains vacant. However, local education authorities usually make temporary arrangements by deploying another teacher or a Cluster Resource Centre Coordinator (CRCC) to support such schools.

He further stated that in exceptional cases where a school is physically functioning with only one teacher, district authorities avoid assigning that teacher election or other urgent public duties, as far as practicable, to ensure classroom teaching is not disrupted.

The minister also outlined the government's teacher deployment policy, stating that teachers are posted based on academic requirements and subject combinations. At the Lower Primary level, teachers handle multi-grade teaching from Classes I to V, with the norm of two teachers per LP school while maintaining a Pupil-Teacher Ratio (PTR) of 30:1, depending on student enrolment.