NEW DELHI: More than one lakh schools across India are functioning with a single teacher, with Andhra Pradesh alone accounting for over 16,000, government data has revealed, highlighting severe deployment gaps despite the country’s overall pupil-teacher ratio remaining within national norms.According to UDISE+ data for 2025-26, India has 1,00,843 single-teacher schools across all management categories. Andhra Pradesh tops the list with 16,357 such schools — more than 16% of the national total — followed by Jharkhand with 9,827 and Maharashtra with 9,269.Karnataka has 8,042 single-teacher schools, Uttar Pradesh 7,874, Rajasthan 7,200 and West Bengal 6,769. Together, the seven states account for nearly 65% of all schools in the country operating with only one teacher.The problem is spread across regions rather than being confined to poorer or geographically difficult states. Telangana has 4,793 such schools, Tamil Nadu 3,957 and Assam 3,159. Himachal Pradesh has 3,128, Uttarakhand 2,655 and Chhattisgarh 2,461.At the other end, Kerala reported 67 single-teacher schools, Nagaland 35, Sikkim 31, Ladakh 28, Delhi seven and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands one.The figures were provided by minister of state for education Jayant Chaudhary in response to a Rajya Sabha question on teacher vacancies. While the question sought data specifically for government schools, the annexure on single-teacher institutions covers schools under all managements.The ministry did not provide state-wise sanctioned posts or vacancies, saying recruitment, service conditions and deployment of teachers were handled by state governments and Union Territory administrations. It attributed vacancies to retirement, resignation, creation of posts, staff rationalisation and changing enrolment, including in rural, tribal and aspirational districts.The Centre said states were regularly advised to fill posts through transparent, merit-based recruitment and use technology for forecasting teacher requirements. Financial support was also provided under Samagra Shiksha to maintain prescribed pupil-teacher ratios.The ministry cited national pupil-teacher ratios of 19 at the primary level, 17 at upper primary, 15 at secondary and 23 at higher secondary — all within the limits envisaged under the National Education Policy. However, the single-teacher-school data indicates that favourable national averages continue to conceal sharp local imbalances in teacher availability.
