With an aim to proper utilization of teaching staff, Punjab Govt decided to combine 800 schools of the state having less than 20 students in total. The merging of such schools will be done with their nearby schools situated within one kilometre radius.
A communique has been sent by the director of the Education Department (Elementary) to district education officers. District education officers are instructed to complete the move within one week. Currently 1600 teachers are working in such schools and once the merger is complete all these teachers will be posted at the schools where their services are required most.
Here is the list of schools : 30 schools in SAS Nagar and Amritsar, 133 in Gurdaspur constituency, Roopnagar has 71, 140 in Hoshiarpur, 52 in Pathankot, 50 in Patiala, 54 in Jalandhar, 41 each in Kapurthala and Fatehgarh Sahib, 39 in Ludhiana, 34 in Nawanshehar (SBS Nagar), 22 in Ferozepur, 9 in Tarn Taran, 8 in Fazilka, 7 in Moga, 5 in Faridkot, 4 in Mansa, 3 each in Barnala and Bhatinda and one in Muktsar district.
There are 47 schools where the strength of students is just less than 5 and out of those 47 schools, 15 were even having less than 3 students.
Along with merger, education minister Aruna Chaudhary has also planned to start pre-primary classes so as to give boost to standard of education in government schools.