Vijayawada: Parankusam Manoja is a cancer survivor, writer and passionate gardener. The 54-year-old is also the sole teacher at a primary school in rural Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, single-handedly managing 24 students from Classes 1 to 5 from one cramped classroom and a makeshift porch.
Working out of the crumbling Mandal Parishad Primary School (MPPS) in Venkatapuram, Manoja juggles 18 subjects entirely on her own, including English, Math and Telugu for the younger classes, with Environmental Studies added for the older ones.
While school starts at 9 am, she arrives at 8.30 am to maintain a small garden where she grows lady finger, mangoes and Javitri—a little oasis in the school that doesn’t even have a separate play area. After school ends at 3.30 pm, she stays on until 5 pm to complete administrative tasks like uploading daily data on government platforms despite weak internet connectivity in the area.
Even after coming home in the evening, she spends two to three hours preparing and planning the next day’s tasks and assignments. “I am not negative towards the government, but sometimes it becomes difficult to manage things,” she told ThePrint.
But Manoja is not alone and this isn’t the only such school. According to the 2024-25 Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) report released by the Union Ministry of Education, India has 1,04,125 single-teacher schools.
Andhra Pradesh accounts for the highest number at 12,912, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 9,508 such schools and Jharkhand with 9,172.
Single-teacher schools face many challenges. Students don’t get personal attention because teachers are usually busy juggling classes with administrative tasks. Hence, sometimes a student requiring extra attention gets overlooked.
Officials cited several reasons for single-teacher schools and declining enrolment.
Vijay Rama Raju V. Director of School Education for Andhra Pradesh, said low enrolment was due to a “falling birth rate and presence of a large number of government foundation and primary schools within every locality”.
According to the latest sample registration systems (SRS) report for 2023, the total fertility rate (TFR) in Andhra Pradesh is 1.5, below the national average of 1.9. TFR is the average number of children a woman would have by the end of her reproductive years. A TFR of less than 2.1 depicts a declining population.
The director of school education said another issue was a June 2022 order under the YSRCP government to merge Classes 3 to 5 with high schools.
The government’s Order 117 merged Classes 3, 4 and 5 with nearby high schools (Classes 6 to 10) in a bid to restructure the schools for better learning outcomes and better administrative management.
According to school teachers and government officials interviewed by ThePrint, school enrolments and attendance at many primary schools declined sharply because of Order 117.
As a result, several primary schools have been downgraded to foundation schools, now offering only Classes 1 and 2.
“If the number of students is limited in a school, then rationalisation is done to move teachers to the school where enrolment is high,” an official told ThePrint.
Under state government guidelines, basic primary schools (classes 1 to 5) of up to 20 students are only eligible for a single teacher, but if the number of students is between 21 and 60, a school is eligible for a second teacher.
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Falling enrolments
ThePrint visited the Mandal Parishad Foundation School in Guntupalli in rural Vijayawada, which had 42 students and two teachers in the 2021-22 academic year when it was a primary school.
After the policy change, D. Kateswar Rao, the school’s only teacher, reported that by September 2022, only three students remained.
“After the school was downgraded to just classes 1 and 2, many students, along with their siblings, shifted to nearby private schools like Don Bosco and the missionary school, St. Anne,” Rao said.
This year, the school has 13 students across Classes 1 and 2, all taught from a single classroom with two blackboards—one for each class.
“I manage to teach children from one classroom,” Rao added.
Raju, the director of school education, quoted earlier, said that while primary schools are common within villages, high schools are fewer and often located 4–5 kilometres away.
Following the merger, many parents enrolled their children in nearby private schools, leading to a drop in government school attendance.
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 supports this trend, showing enrolment of children aged 6 to 14 in Andhra Pradesh government schools fell from 70.8 percent in 2022 to 61.8 percent in 2024.
How is state responding
Senior state education department officials said the N. Chandrababu Naidu government is betting on its programme to establish 9,620 model primary schools from Classes 1 to 5 in every gram panchayat, with one teacher per class.
According to Raju V., this initiative is expected to significantly reduce the number of single-teacher schools over the next two to three years.
“Parents are likely to shift their children to model primary schools due to the improved quality of education and better learning outcomes across classes,” he said.
“Once there are no new enrolments in single-teacher schools, we will close them. However, until students continue to attend, we will keep them open out of moral and social responsibility,” he added.
ThePrint visited Model Primary School in Davajigudem village, which until last year was a foundation school and is now being converted into a model primary school.
These model schools offer personalised attention to students with one teacher for each class. The walls of schools are also colourfully designed under the BaLa initiative (Building as Learning Aid) to make learning more fun and activity-based for young students.
Each teacher has a WhatsApp group for each class to share daily learning and homework with parents to ensure that parents are informed about their children’s progress.
M. Kanya Kumari, the school principal, told ThePrint, “We have 150 students across Pre-primary 1, Pre-primary 2, and classes 1 to 5 being taught by six teachers and one principal.”
“In these model schools, engagement with parents and students remains high as classes are aligned with a single teacher. Each teacher of the class has a WhatsApp group with parents where daily learnings and homework are updated so that parents are aware of their children’s progress,” she added.
The state government is betting on these 9,620 model primary schools to bring down the number of single-teacher schools.
“This year we have started with 9,600 model primary schools and our aim is to saturate further over the next couple of years in every gram panchayat to help reduce single-teacher schools,” Kona Sasidhar, secretary, human resource development department that oversees school education and skill development for Andhra Pradesh, told ThePrint.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)