More than 300 elementary schools in the TTAADC region are being run by a single teacher, according to the chief minister of Tripura, underscoring the pressing need to address the teacher shortage.
Chief Minister Manik Saha told the Assembly on April 1 that the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) has more than 300 basic schools with just one teacher.
The autonomous district council, which occupies almost two-thirds of the state’s land and is inhabited by the indigenous population, is in charge of overseeing the 1,387 elementary schools in Sixth Schedule districts in the northeastern state.
The chief minister, who is in charge of education, responded to a motion of calling attention made by Pathan Lal Jamatia, an MLA for the Tipra Motha Party, by stating that the TTAADC runs 1,387 primary schools with 30,273 pupils and 3,504 instructors.
In order to alleviate the teacher deficit in TTAADC-run schools, he added, the state had sent 709 instructors to these establishments.
“Tribal council-run primary schools have a decent student-teacher ratio, yet 302 of them only have one teacher. This emphasises how urgently TTAADC schools need a more equitable teacher allocation. The issue will be fixed if we can accomplish this,” he stated.
The Chief Minister also talked about the causes of these schools’ low enrolment rates.
“The main reason for low enrolment is a low birth rate. He added that the opening of English-medium schools has also had a role in the downward trend in student enrolment.
He underlined the state’s dedication to giving kids in TTAADC-run schools a top-notch education and said that ₹1.20 crore had been given to TTAADC officials to renovate a number of schools between 2024 and 2025.
“The state allots a sizeable sum to cover the salaries of the delegation instructors employed by various institutions. This comes to almost ₹66.98 crore a year,” he continued.
Saha also discussed the dropout rates in the primary schools administered by the TTAADC, noting that in 2017–18, the primary and secondary dropout rates were 0.90% and 27.10%, respectively, but that in the following years, these rates had dropped to 0.5% and 10.4%.
He blamed the decline in tribal communities on a number of causes, including child marriage, difficulties in teaching and learning, the state of the economy, and the growth of English-medium schools.