Nagpur: Education is taking a severe beating as 26 schools run by Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) have been closed in the past three years in the city, revealed a reply to the RTI query.
The city’s activist Abhay Kolarkar had sought information from the NMC’s Education Department regarding school status under Right to Information (RTI) Act. In response, the civic body’s Assistant Education Officer Sanjay Dighore informed that until 2018-2019, the NMC used to run 157 schools and in 2019-20, it closed 26 schools.
Gold Rate
28 July 2025
According to the RTI reply, even the number of students taking education in NMC schools has decreased significantly. From 19,336 students in 2019, the number has now reduced to 15,812 in 131 schools, including both primary and secondary. Despite the decline in the number of students, NMC has spent Rs 8.01 crore for running these schools, said the reply.
The information further said that the number of students too decreased in the last three academic sessions. In 2019-20, the number of students in primary schools was 12,195, while the students enrolled in secondary schools were 7,141. In the academic year 2020-21, the number of students in primary schools reduced by 1,819 to take the enrolments to 10,376, while the secondary schools witnessed a rise in enrolment to 7,391. In the 2021-22 academic sessions, secondary schools saw as many as 1,868 students dropping out.
In another disturbing information under the RTI, the NMC is using 38 school buildings for other purposes than education. The NMC has also reduced the number of teachers. In 2019-20, there were 747 teachers and now only 698 are posted.
According to sources, the NMC’s Education Department blamed the fall in the number of students to the Marathi medium education at most NMC schools as nowadays parents from below poverty line too prefer English medium schools. The NMC has converted six Marathi medium schools into English medium schools from 2021-22 academic sessions in different assembly constituencies, sources added.
