India’s count of single-teacher schools fell from 1,04,125 in 2024-25 to 1,00,843 in 2025-26, a net decline of 3,282 schools over a year. The figures come from UDISE reports, the government’s official school education database, and were also tabled in the Rajya Sabha in late July, in response to a question on teacher vacancies.
A single-teacher school is one where a lone teacher is responsible for all classes and subjects, and is widely used as a marker of under-resourced schooling.
The national number, which showed a larger decline, does not reflect a uniform trend across states. Data for both years show that five states alone cut more than 11,000 single-teacher schools between them, a figure over three times the size of the national net decline. At the same time, several other states added thousands of such schools to their count. The overall drop of 3,282 is the net result of these two opposing trends.
Where the numbers fell
Madhya Pradesh recorded the sharpest decline. Its single-teacher school count fell from 7,217 in 2024-25 to 2,269 in 2025-26, a reduction of 4,948 schools, larger than the entire national net decline on its own. Chhattisgarh followed with a drop of 3,512 schools, from 5,973 to 2,461. Uttar Pradesh, which still has the highest number of single-teacher schools among major states, brought its count down from 9,508 to 7,874, a fall of 1,634. Punjab and Gujarat rounded out the top five, with declines of 682 and 601 schools respectively.
| State | 2024-25 | 2025-26 | Change |
| Madhya Pradesh | 7,217 | 2,269 | -4,948 |
| Chhattisgarh | 5,973 | 2,461 | -3,512 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 9,508 | 7,874 | -1,634 |
| Punjab | 2,431 | 1,749 | -682 |
| Gujarat | 2,936 | 2,335 | -601 |
Where the number of single-teacher schools saw an increase
Andhra Pradesh recorded the largest increase in the country. Its single-teacher school count rose from 12,912 to 16,357, an addition of 3,445 schools, even though it already had one of the highest counts among states in 2024-25. Maharashtra and Rajasthan also added more than a thousand such schools each, rising by 1,117 and 1,083 respectively. Karnataka and Jharkhand recorded smaller increases of 693 and 655 schools.
| State | 2024-25 | 2025-26 | Change |
| Andhra Pradesh | 12,912 | 16,357 | +3,445 |
| Maharashtra | 8,152 | 9,269 | +1,117 |
| Rajasthan | 6,117 | 7,200 | +1,083 |
| Karnataka | 7,349 | 8,042 | +693 |
| Jharkhand | 9,172 | 9,827 | +655 |
What the government has said, and not said
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The Centre’s reply in the Rajya Sabha does not explain the state-wise variation. It attributes teacher vacancies in general to factors such as retirement, resignation, creation of new posts, rationalisation of teacher deployment and changes in enrolment, without linking any of these specifically to the states that recorded large increases or decreases.
The reply also stopped short of answering part of the original question, which had asked for the sanctioned strength, working strength and vacancies of teachers, state-wise. On this, the government said that data is maintained by the respective state governments and Union Territory administrations, and did not table it. What was provided instead was the number of teachers currently in position and the count of single-teacher schools, both from UDISE+ 2025-26.
Declining numbers seem good, but there’s a catch: Because sanctioned posts and vacancies were not shared, it is not possible from this reply to say how many of the reductions in single-teacher schools came from new appointments, and how many came from school mergers, closures or reclassification.
Pupil-teacher ratio shows some improvement, though the comparison is not exact
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The two years of data measure pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) differently, which limits a direct comparison. UDISE+ 2024-25 gave a single national PTR figure of 24 students per teacher. UDISE+ 2025-26, as cited in the government’s reply, did not give one overall number, and instead broke the ratio down by level of schooling: 19 at primary, 17 at upper primary, 15 at secondary, and 23 at higher secondary.
Each of these level-wise figures for 2025-26 is lower than the composite 2024-25 figure of 24. The government’s reply notes that all four are within the norms set by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which calls for a PTR below 30 nationally and below 25 in areas with a high share of socio-economically disadvantaged students. Since the two years use different measures, this points toward improvement in direction rather than a like-for-like comparison.