Kolkata — The West Bengal government is planning to merge several government-run schools to address the disparity in teacher-student ratios across the state. Education Minister Bratya Basu recently hinted at the merger plan, and officials are now developing a strategy to ensure a balanced ratio in each consolidated school.

The state education department has identified 3,254 schools with no students enrolled and 14,627 teachers employed by these schools. Conversely, 6,366 schools have more than 100 students but only one teacher.

“The idea is to merge two or more schools from these categories based on proximity to achieve balanced teacher-student ratios,” said a senior department official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The department believes the mergers will help the state government achieve a more balanced teacher-student ratio.

However, the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), criticizes the plan as a “short-cut” that avoids addressing the lack of academic infrastructure in government schools. The SFI argues that the merger will exacerbate the problem of teacher unemployment in the state, an area already marred by corruption.