Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The newly built Sandipani schools in the state are now finding themselves with more teachers than required after nearby government schools were shifted to their campuses. The school education system is facing a mismatch in teacher deployment.
The department has been merging smaller neighbourhood schools with larger Sandipani campuses as part of its school restructuring exercise. In the process, students as well as teachers of the schools being shifted are being brought into the Sandipani system. The department has also said that the surplus will be calculated on the basis of new student enrolment.
According to UDISE+ 2025-26, MP has 1.20 lakh schools, 1.52 crore students and 7.29 lakh teachers. The overall pupil-teacher ratio is 21:1, but the statewide average masks differences between individual schools.
The data shows that 2,269 schools are single-teacher schools, affecting more than 62,000 students. At the other end, the Sandipani restructuring is now prompting the department to identify schools where the number of teachers exceeds the requirement after students and teachers from nearby schools are brought together.
Hundreds of schools running with surplus teachers, dept asked to identify them
As per officials, the schools have been running with surplus teachers and this is going to happen in the future too. To address this, the school education department has directed districts to identify excess teachers and shift them to schools where vacancies exist. The counselling process for such teachers has to be completed by September 25. If a Sandipani school has more teachers than required after the merger, the district-level monitoring committee will send proposals for their deployment elsewhere at the state level.
As per recent Directorate of Public Instruction order, teachers from schools shifted to Sandipani campuses will not necessarily remain together at the new school. If the combined strength of teachers becomes higher than the requirement at a Sandipani school, surplus teachers will be identified and shifted to other schools where vacancies exist. While calculating sanctioned posts at the primary level, posts for pre-primary teachers will also be included.
