The total number of schools in the country declined by about 20,000 from 2020-’21 to 2021-’22, data released by the Union ministry of education showed on Thursday.

The ministry released the Unified District Information System for Education report for 2021-’22 on Thursday.

The report said that the number of schools in the country declined to 14.89 lakh in 2021-’22 from 15.09 lakh in 2020-’21. “The decline in total schools is mainly due to closure of schools under private and other management,” the report said.

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The data also showed that the number of teachers declined by 1.95% from 2020-’21 to 2021-’22. In 2020-’21, there were 97.87 lakh teachers in the country, and the figure declined to 95.07 lakh in 2021-’22.

“Although the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is cross-cutting, this is particularly noticed in the enrolment of young and vulnerable kids...,” the report said. The study found that enrolment of students in pre-primary sections dropped by 11.5 lakh from 2020-’21 to 2021-’22.

However, the data showed that enrolment of students from the primary to the higher secondary level increased by 19.36 lakh in the past two years.

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Further, the report found that the representation of girls in school education was in line with the proportion of girls in the population of the corresponding age group. In 2021-’22, the Gender Parity Index was recorded at 1.03 at the primary level, 1 at the upper primary and secondary levels, and 1.02 at the higher secondary level.

A value of more than 1 indicates a higher representation of girls, while a value below 1 indicates their under-representation.

The report showed that 33.9% of schools had internet facilities in 2021-’22, while 47.5% of schools had computer facilities.

Meanwhile, the data showed that 98.2% of schools had drinking water facilities on their premises. Further, 97.5% of schools had a girls’ toilet while 96.2% of them had a boys’ toilet.