Days after the Ashok Gehlot-led government said it would review textbooks and other reference material revised by the BJP government under Vasundhara Raje, the state education department has issued an order seeking to review the merger of primary and upper-primary schools by the previous dispensation. In the order, issued on December 27, the Elementary Education Department has asked officials to review the merger of all schools between the academic sessions of 2014-15 and 2017-18 and ensure that they were done after following proper process. The government order mentions that a total of 3,717 primary schools were merged with other such institutions in that period. In December 2013, the Raje government had merged 17,000 primary and upper primary schools with secondary and higher secondary schools. In subsequent years, mergers were done in several other phases. According to data from the District Information System for Education (DISE), the number of schools in the state went down from 1,19,574 in 2013-14 to 1,06,254 in 2014-15. Then in the Opposition, the Congress had protested the move to merge the schools. In its election manifesto, the party had stated that it would review and reopen more than 20,000 schools that, it alleged, were closed by the BJP government. “According to RTE norms, it is compulsory to have a primary school within 1-km radius and an upper primary school within 2 km. If any school has been merged against these conditions, after identifying them, send a proposal to reopen them to the government,” the order reads. The order has asked the education department to identify schools which were merged but are separated by jungle, river, railway lines, national highway and streams between them. “The review of the merger of schools is being done throughout the state. It is being ascertained why a school was shut, and the reasons behind it,” said Nitendra Pal Singh, additional director, Elementary Education Department, Bikaner. The BJP maintained that the mergers were done with an objective to provide better and quality education. It held that many of the primary and upper primary schools, which were merged with secondary and higher secondary schools, were under-utilising their facilities. It also maintained that no school was closed in the process.
