Improved governance of Indian school system through school consolidation

Formal education is provided in schools that should be accessible to citizens, facilitating them to reach the schools with ease, safety and without travelling too large a distance. The requirement of accessibility, however, brings into consideration the corresponding cost and resource utilization. There exists a vast school network in India, with many schools established under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan program. However, the existence of too many schools, mostly low in enrolment, is creating problems in terms of quality of teaching and infrastructural facilities offered by these schools. This trade-off between large size schools having good infrastructure and conducive ecosystem, and many small schools deprived of it, can be addressed by appropriate school consolidation. The current study presents a mathematical programming model for school consolidation that aims to minimize the total disruption and transfer the students to an alternative school considering the school network. The model is then applied to a case for a district in the Indian state of Karnataka. Various scenario runs have been done to come out with the appropriate policy parameters for the given district and the results are highly encouraging. The model and analysis can be replicated as well as customized according to the needs of different states.