State of the Education Report for India-2021

Context

On the occasion of World Teacher’s Day, "State of the Education Report (SOER) -2021 of India-" No Teachers, No Class" has been released by UNESCO.

Key-points

• This report is published annually by UNESCO.
• This is the third edition of the Education Report.
• This year, the report focuses on the theme “teachers, teaching and educating teachers”, highlighting the challenge of teaching.
• The report seeks to provide insight into key aspects of the teaching profession and provides a profile of 9.6 million teaching staff.
• The report also highlights the challenges of a complex system of teaching and their professional development.
• The findings of this report were prepared on the basis of the data obtained from:
• Periodic Labor Force Survey (PLFS)
• Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE)

Key-findings

• As per the report, there are close to 1.2 lakh schools in India. It accounts for 7.15 percent of 11.51 lakh schools. Of this, 89 percent are in rural areas.
• 51% of fotal schools are employing 95 lakh teachers.
• According to the Report's findings, India needs 11.16 more teachers to address the current shortage.
• Countries with the highest percentage of schools with single teachers are
• Arunachal Pradesh (18.22%)
• Goa (16.08%)
• Telangana (15.71%)
• Andhra Pradesh (14.4%)
• Jharkhand (13.81%)
• Uttarakhand (13.64%)
• Madhya Pradesh (13.08%)
• Rajasthan (10.08%)

UNESCO Recommendations

• UNESCO recommends improving teacher recruitment policies in public and private schools.
• Increasing the number of teachers and improving their working conditions in all the North East provinces, rural areas and regions that want to study.
• Recognizing teachers as frontline workers etc.