Over 20K schools shut down in India during 2020-21, number of teachers declined by 1.95%: Education Ministry

While only 27 percent schools have special toilets for children with special needs (CSWN), over 49 percent of them have ramps with handrails, it said.

Detailing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on enrolment, the report said, "Although the impact of Covid is cross-cutting, this is particularly noticed in the enrolment of young and vulnerable kids like pre-primary classes."

"This decline may be attributed to postponement of admissions due to COVID-19".

In 2021-22, enrolment of students in school education from primary to higher secondary was around 25.57 crore. This is higher by 19.36 lakh as compared to the enrolment of students in 2020-21, the report said.

According to the report, the total number of teachers also declined by 1.95 percent in 2021-22 compared to 2020-21. The total number of teachers in 2021-22 was 95.07 lakh, decreasing from 97.87 lakh in 2020-21, it said.

"The percentage of teachers teaching only primary (34.4 percent in 2021-22 from 35.4m percent in 2020-21) and only upper primary (18.9 percent in 2021-22 from 21.5 percent in 2020-21) has reduced.

The decrease in teachers during 2021-22 as against previous year was 0.9 percent in government schools, 1.45 percent in government aided schools, 2.94 percent in private schools and 8.3 percent in other schools, it said.

In UDISE+ 2021-22, additional data on important indicators such as digital library, peer learning, hard spot identification, number of books available in school library, etc have been collected for the first time to align with the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020 initiatives.