This school in Gujarat village has just one student, and two teachers

This child is the only student at this school, which, apart from Patel, has one more teacher.

The village is situated on the border of Gujarat and Maharashtra with most villagers working as farm labourers in different districts and talukas.

The school, which imparts education from nursery (Bal Vatika) to Class 5 in Gujarati medium, used to be flooded with students earlier. However, with the parents of the students moving to other places for work, the student strength started trickling down over the years, reducing to only one student, who studies in Class 5, this academic year, said authorities.

At present, both the teachers impart education to this lone student. On the other hand, there is a staff crunch of over 150 teachers in several government primary schools in Dang, said a source in the district primary education office.

Dang district has a total of 377 government primary schools in different villages, with 39,000 students. There are 1,107 teachers serving in the primary section schools, from Class 1 to 5, and 508 in upper primary schools, from Class 6 to 8.

The lone student, Krunal Bhoye, inside the classroom.

“Last year, there were five students – two in upper primary and three in lower primary. Two students shifted to the ashram school in Vaghai while two others had moved to other talukas. Presently, there is a single student, Krunal Bhoye. There are two teachers. We will have to transfer one of the teachers to a neighbouring village school,” District Primary Education Officer Vijay Deshmukh told The Indian Express.

Deshmukh said the authorities had asked Mukesh Bhoye, Krunal’s father, to get his son shifted to the neighbouring Nagarpada village school, around one-and-a-half kilometres away, but he refused.

“So, in this academic year, there is only one student in Bhurbhendi village school at present. For the last two years, there have been no new admissions in Balvatika. The school was built a long time ago. Earlier, a large number of students used to study here, but as time went by, people migrated to different talukas and districts, and the strength of students also went down,” said Deshmukh.