Literacy among youths is the backbone of the society which depends upon the quality of education imparted in educational institutes, both in schools and colleges in the state. Haryana state education department aims to introduce ‘New Education Policy’ by the end of next year, but have large number of challenges to meet the aim. In the case of higher education, there are 182 government colleges and 97 government-aided colleges in Haryana state. Whereas, in case of schools there are nearly 14000 government schools and nearly 6200 private schools in the state providing education to nearly 48 lakh students, apart from this nearly five lakh students are getting education in unrecognized schools including ‘Gurukul’ and ‘ Madrasas’ in the state. There are also 86 private colleges, 25 private Universities and 10 state government Universities in the state.
Information also reveals that in the absence of students, as many as 664 primary schools in Haryana state were closed down in past about a decade, of these 89 schools have started functioning again after having increase in the number of minimum students, whereas 52% decrease in admission in class I and 25% decrease in admission in class II have been witnessed in past three years.
Information further reveals that there are more than 29000 teachers in government schools in Haryana state, and in the same way more than 50% posts of professors in government colleges in the state are lying vacant. Apart from this there are a large number of posts for non-teaching staff in government schools and colleges are also lying vacant, putting additional burden over the teaching staff, thus also disturbing education to the students. Information reveals that as against 8137 posts of professors nearly 4738 posts are lying vacant in government colleges.
Similarly, in government schools in the state 29016 teachers are lying vacant as against the number of 86624 posts which include shortage of 11341 posts for PGT teachers and 16537 posts for TGT teachers. As per available data, 1138 posts for the teachers in government primary schools are lying vacant, 26396 PGT teachers are providing education to the students as against the vacancies for 39748 teachers in government schools.
Finding lack of required basic amenities and infrastructure in government schools in Haryana state, including supply of electricity, availability of drinking water, shortage of teaching rooms and the basic necessities required in the schools Punjab and Haryana High Court intervened into the matter few years ago, when it was observed that in 1952 government schools required basic facilities were not available in the schools in the state. There was no power supply in 236 schools, availability of pure drinking water was not available in 131 schools, there were no toilets for female students in 538 schools and non-availability of toilets for the boys in 1047 schools. There was also a shortage of 8240 rooms for teaching the students. Punjab and Haryana High Court strictly directed all such government schools to provide all basic facilities to the sutdents to avoid action against them.
