According to the data tabled by the HRD Ministry in the Lok Sabha, Government schools across the country are short of a million teachers! In other words, one in six teaching positions in government schools is vacant.
In government-run primary schools 18% positions and 15% of teachers in secondary school teacher positions are lying vacant.
Of 6 million teaching positions in government schools nationwide, about 900,000 elementary school teaching positions and 100,000 in secondary school - put together, 1 million are vacant.
These figures however represent the average vacancies nationwide. Some states said to have filled at the positions while in some more than half the posts are vacant.
Making it obvious, states with lower rates of literacy have more than vacant teaching positions.
According to the education data of 2015-16, 55% India's school children population attend government schools.
Among the states and the union territories, Jharkhand has the most acute secondary school teacher shortage: 70 per cent (38 per cent at the elementary level). Half of all secondary school teacher posts in Uttar Pradesh are vacant, as are a third in Bihar and Gujarat.
The reasons for shortage of teachers are lack of regular recruitment, not clearing position, bungled deployment of teachers, lack of specialist teachers for certain subjects, and small schools, which cause available teachers to be thinly spread.
Goa, Odisha and Sikkim have no vacant elementary teaching positions. The only Indian state with no teaching vacancies either in elementary or secondary schools is Sikkim.