Arunachal has 596 schools with no student

Itanagar, July 9 (PTI): A total of 596 primary and secondary schools have become non-functional in Arunachal Pradesh as there is not a single student in them, the assembly was informed on Tuesday. Education Minister Taba Tedir Tuesday said the department has received a list of such schools from deputy commissioners and deputy directors of school education from various districts. An earlier report, prepared in August last year, had put the number of non-functional primary schools at 254 and such secondary schools at 19. Replying to a question by Jambey Tashi of the BJP, the minister said, “The department is going to close such non- functional schools with zero enrollment and will focus on strengthening the functional schools.” Later, responding to a query on whether efforts have been initiated to make these schools functional, Tedir said, the government has asked officials to check if those schools could be made functional. To a supplementary question raised by Tashi, he assured the house to examine if such institutes could be allowed to run by NGOs. Tedir said the department has constituted a committee on how to utilise the assets and infrastructure that have been created for such schools.