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The primary schools of Jharkhand are in a very poor condition, with students as well as teachers facing varying degrees of harassment, a new report has claimed.
Crisis of Single Teacher Schools, released during a public hearing in the Manika block of the state’s Latehar district, reveals a very shocking state of affairs.
More than 8,000 schools — over a third of Jharkhand’s government primary schools — have just one teacher. Most students who attend these schools are from extremely marginalised sections of society. They are not only deprived of proper education and fundamental rights but are also victims of caste discrimination. In some schools, teachers were found drunk. In others, differently abled teachers were not provided any facilities. School girls are forced to defecate in the open due to poorly constructed buildings.
The poor condition of these schools, which are the only means of education for the children of deprived sections, is actually a flagrant violation of the fundamental Right to Education (RTE), according to the report.
The Manika-based NREGA Support Centre conducted a survey in early 2025, covering 40 of the 55 single-teacher schools in the block. The final report, based on the survey, has been authored by Pallavi Kumari and Sayang Gaikwad.
The survey found that these 40 single-teacher schools have an average of 59 students. In some schools, this number is more than 100. One school in Bichlidag village had 144 students.
According to the analysis, this is an open violation of the teacher-student ratio in primary schools prescribed by the RTE Act, 2009. The Act mandates that there should be at least one teacher for every 30 students. Further, at least two teachers are mandatory in every primary school.
Teachers in most Manika schools are appointed on contract. Seventy-eight per cent teachers are above 40 years of age and only 15 per cent are women. These 40 schools require 99 teachers as per RTE norms, whereas only 40 teachers are present.
The state government has not appointed primary teachers since 2017, and though the High Court has intervened and ordered appointments, even the promised 26,000 posts are far short of what is needed.
The survey found teachers to be often busy preparing records and doing other non-academic work, such as generating APAAR numbers for children. APAAR, which stands for Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry, is a unique 12-digit identification assigned to students in India to digitally store and manage their academic achievements. The teachers performing mostly non-academic duties means they remain far away from the basic work of imparting education, according to the report. At the time of survey, no active teaching work was taking place in 87.5 per cent of the schools, it added.
The absence of teachers in Manika’s schools has become so common that students are losing touch with their studies. Worrying, only a third of the enrolled children were found present. In some schools, teachers were found under the influence of alcohol, endangering the cognitive and mental development of children.
Teachers were found to be spending an average of 10 hours a week on administrative paperwork, especially on APAAR IDs. But even in this, the overworked teachers put up a poor show. Document errors, mismatches between Aadhaar and UDISE+, and children’s IDs being rejected were found to be commonplace.
According to the survey, about 84 per cent of the students studying in these schools come from Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities, who face discrimination. Caste-based discrimination exists as a deep-rooted and persistently ignored crisis in the school education system, which impacts children from disadvantaged and marginalised communities the most.
A caste background analysis of teachers working in Manika’s schools found 12 to be from the general category, 10 from Other Backward Classes (OBC), four from SC and 14 from ST communities. Despite this diverse mix of caste backgrounds, discriminatory behaviour was clearly evident in the schools.
SC, ST and OBC children, who form 80 per cent of the students in these schools, often faced prejudiced behaviour from teachers—manifested not only verbally but also behaviorally.
According to the report, some teachers were heard making derogatory and stereotypical comments towards students, such as: “These children don’t study because they are from a certain caste.” Such statements not only highlight individual bias, but also legitimise a structural inequality within the classroom.
This environment of caste discrimination is seriously affecting students’ self-esteem, motivation and overall educational experience, according to the report. It emphasised on recognising this fact and implementing the ‘equal opportunity education policy’ at the ground level, and not just on paper.
The quality of the mid-day meal scheme is very poor, according to the report. In many schools, eggs are not provided, food is cooked with wood instead of gas, and cooks have not received salaries for months. This affects both the nutritional status and attendance of children.
The condition of infrastructure in schools was also found to be very poor. A whopping 82.5 per cent schools do not have functional toilets. There is also a lack of clean water and adequate classrooms. This situation is a major hindrance to the education of girls.
SC and ST groups constitute 72 per cent of Manika’s population, and the female literacy rate is only 47 per cent. Given the dire condition of government schools, the dream of inclusivity and equality in education has become a distant dream.