Amid growing uproar over the merger of low-enrolment primary government schools, the Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday (July 31, 2025) issued clarification, stating that no schools have been permanently paired and no school located more than one km away from students’ homes will be paired, adding if student numbers rise or seating becomes inadequate, classes will resume in the original schools.
“Approximately 10,000 schools were identified for pairing, and this process, along with the unmerging of schools where necessary, will be completed within the coming week. Schools with fewer than 50 students are being considered for the pairing. No school has been permanently paired. If student numbers rise or seating becomes inadequate, classes will resume in the original buildings, with UDISE codes remaining unchanged,” said Sandeep Singh, Basic Education Minister at a press conference held at Lok Bhavan in Lucknow.
The Minister added, “all the schools [1,32,886] that we have under the Basic Education Department will still remain fully operational. If the distance of the schools which have been merged is more than 1 kilometre and the students are facing any kind of inconvenience, then all those schools will be unpaired again,”.
