In news- On the occasion of World Teacher’s Day, UNESCO released “State of the Education Report (SOER)-2021 for India: No Teachers, No Class”, on October 5, 2021.
About the report-
- This report is the annual flagship publication of UNESCO New Delhi.
- This is the third edition of the State of Education Report.
- This year, the report has focused on the theme of “teachers, teaching and teacher education”.
- The report attempts to provide understanding on the key aspects of the teaching profession and also provides a profile of 9.6 million teaching workforce.
- Findings in the report were prepared on the basis of analysis of Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) and Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) data.
Findings-
- There are around 1.2 lakh single-teacher schools (7%) in India.
- It accounts for 7.15 percent of 11.51 lakh schools.
- Out of this, 89 per cent are in rural areas.
- 51 percent of total schools are employing 95 lakh teachers and India requires 11.16 lakh additional teachers to meet the current shortfall.
- States with high percentage of single-teacher schools are- Arunachal Pradesh (18.22%), Goa (16.08%), Telangana (15.71%), Andhra Pradesh (14.4%), Jharkhand (13.81%).
- Though the overall number of teachers looks perfect to maintain a good pupil-teacher ratio, there is a segmental disparity. E.g. the pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) at senior secondary schools is 47:1 as against 26:1 of the overall school system.
- 7.7% of teachers in pre-primary, 4.6% at the primary level and 3.3% upper-primary are under-qualified.
- Half of India’s 9.43 million school teachers are women.
- Access to the internet in schools is 19% all over India – only 14% in rural areas compared to 42% in urban areas.
- There is a lack of devices and Internet bandwidth for a significant proportion of students, lack of preparedness of teachers in the use of technology, and lack of resources in Indian languages.
Key recommendations of the SOER report-
- Improve the terms of employment of teachers in both public and private schools.
- Increase the number of teachers and improve working conditions in North-Eastern states, rural areas and aspirational districts.
- Increase the number of physical education, music, art, vocational education, early childhood and special education teachers.
- Build teachers career pathways and provide meaningful ICT training to teachers.
Source: The Hindu
