At a time when government-run and grant-in-aid schools face staffing shortages, Gujarat is shifting towards privatized education.
It may be argued that the private sector is merely filling a vacuum, by setting up schools in areas where the government isn’t. However, the divide is more visible in urban centres than in rural districts. For instance, Ahmedabad has 47 government-run secondary schools, and 526 that are privately operated. The gap is even wider in Surat, where private schools (581) outnumber government schools (15) in a 39:1 ratio.
On the other hand, Banaskantha district has 138 government-run secondary schools, and 236 privately run ones. Similarly, Kutch has 178 government secondary schools and 172 non-grant-in-aid ones.
Overall, Gujarat has 1,214 government-run secondary schools, 5,082 grant-in-aid secondary schools, and 4,448 that operate privately. This means that, technically, there are more schools being operated in full or in part by the government. So, where is the rub?
While the government has recently announced plans to hire 7,500 teachers to permanent positions in government-run primary schools, it has not addressed the issue of vacancies at the secondary or higher-secondary level.
As previously reported by Gujarat Samachar Digital, 1,600 schools in Gujarat operate with just one teacher each, and the state faces a staggering shortage of 30,000 educators.
Data from the education department reveals that there are 657 vacancies for teachers and 329 for principals in government secondary schools. Meanwhile, there are 2,518 spots open for teachers—and 979 for principals—in grant-in-aid secondary schools.
Among the grant-in-aid secondary schools, Kheda district has the highest number of teacher vacancies (423) while Dang district needs just two more teachers.
Until the government resolves its staffing issues, the state’s students will have no recourse but to suffer the consequences of attending under-staffed and under-equipped secondary schools, or to rely on private institutions, and hope for a better outcome.