Nearly 10,000 Telangana-run schools struggle to fill classrooms

Despite Chief Minister Revanth Reddy’s claim of a three-lakh rise in government school enrolments, Education Department data shows nearly 10,000 schools have up to 30 students and 1,897 have none, reflecting a sharp decline in public confidence

Hyderabad: Contrary to the claims of Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, who also holds the Education Department portfolio, of a three-lakh surge in government school enrolments, official records paint a starkly different picture.

As per the statistics released by the Education Department, a staggering number of nearly 10,000 government and local body schools recorded up to 30 admissions for the academic year 2025-26. While majority of these schools i.e., 8,762 are under primary level, 172 are high schools.

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Even more alarming, 4,325 schools admitted fewer than 10 students. Among these schools, 44 per cent, which accounts to 1,897, are devoid of any students, while five schools have just a single kid and another 151 schools have only two students on rolls.

Among those with zero enrolment, 1,825 are under the primary category, 40 under upper primary and 32 high schools. These schools have a total of 532 teachers, including 489 in primary schools, 106 in upper primary schools and 18 in high schools, on rolls.

Despite having more than twice the number of institutions, the government and local body schools witnessed significantly lower admissions compared to their private counterparts.

The statistics reveal that 24,244 government and local body schools recorded a total of 16,68,068 admissions, while 11,047 private schools enrolled 35,99,934 students.

One of the main reasons for low enrolments in the government schools is attributed to lack of teaching pattern in the classrooms. Teachers since long have been raising concerns over sidelining classroom teaching as the government has been assigning them to administrative tasks besides drafting them to regular training activities.

“During the pandemic, 2.5 lakh more children enrolled in government schools. However, the enrolment is taking a beating due to various government policies. Teachers are being kept away from the classrooms due to administrative work and too much training activity. This is adversely affecting the quality of education, leading to growing dissatisfaction among parents and a decline in their confidence in government schools. There is a need to deploy one teacher per class in the primary schools,” said M Ravinder, a Mathematics teacher with Government High School-Nallakunta and former general secretary of TPTF.