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.

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.

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.