Srinagar, August 11 (KNS): Jammu & Kashmir has witnessed one of the steepest contractions in its government school network in the country, with the number of institutions plunging from 23,173 in 2021–22 to 18,785 in 2023–24, a loss of 4,388 schools in just two years, according to official data tabled in Parliament on Monday.

The figures, sourced from the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+), show that the decline was particularly sharp between 2021–22 and 2022–23, when the UT lost nearly 4,400 schools in a single year.

This roll-back comes even as the Centre, under the Samagra Shiksha scheme, has been funding the strengthening of school infrastructure, building additional classrooms, and promoting universal access under the Right to Education (RTE) Act.

While the Ministry of Education did not cite specific J&K-level reasons, it said that across states and UTs, school closures or mergers fall under the jurisdiction of local administrations and are often linked to low enrolment, infrastructure gaps, or rationalisation for better pupil–teacher ratios.Click Here To Follow Our WhatsApp ChannelNEP 2020, it noted, calls for consolidation of schools only when access is not compromised.

The Centre said transport allowances of up to ?6,000 per child per annum are being provided in remote or sparsely populated habitations where opening a new school is not feasible. Special residential schools such as Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Awasiya Vidyalayas, and schemes under PM-JANMAN and Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan, are being used to cover unserved tribal populations in far-flung areas.(KNS)