Inside a Chhattisgarh school where absence turned a sweeper into a teacher

The blackboard had lessons written on it, children sat quietly in front, and a class was underway but the person teaching was not a teacher, but a sweeper.

In Jamjhor village of Lakhanpur development block in Surguja district, Chhattisgarh, a government primary school functioned under unusual circumstances.

A school sweeper was seen teaching children while appointed teachers were missing. The video spread widely on social media and sparked concern about the condition of classrooms in rural India.

The incident gained attention at a time when national surveys have repeatedly pointed to gaps in basic learning and classroom presence.

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 reports that average teacher attendance in government primary schools rose to 87.5 per cent — an improvement but still leaving more than one in ten teachers absent on a typical day.

ASER’s school checks in 2024 also visited over 15,700 government primary schools as part of its national sample.

ASER 2023 noted that foundational learning remains weak across rural areas, raising questions not only about what children learn but also whether regular teaching actually happens.

THE CLASS WITHOUT TEACHERS

Jamjhor Primary School officially has a headmaster and two other teachers posted. Yet, during school hours, no teacher was present.

The sweeper took charge of the classroom, guiding students through lessons. The situation revealed a stark reality: the school building existed, enrolment existed, but teaching staff were absent.

When questioned about the negligence, the headmaster said that he was unaware of the situation and would gather information.

The response itself deepened concerns. If the head of the institution did not know who was teaching, it highlighted a breakdown of supervision within the system.

Official school data also point to structural pressures. UDISE+ data show India has over one crore teachers and millions of schools; pupil-teacher ratios have improved in recent years, but distribution remains uneven across levels and regions, affecting small and remote schools disproportionately.

A PATTERN BEYOND ONE SCHOOL

Education surveys in India have often drawn attention to attendance gaps in classrooms.

The ASER 2023 found that while school enrolment in rural India remained above 95 per cent for children aged 6–14, classroom learning and regular teaching engagement continued to lag, with many students in Classes 3–8 unable to read Class 2-level text fluently or solve basic arithmetic problems appropriate for their grade.

The Jamjhor case became a visible example of what those statistics imply on the ground — a classroom running, but without teachers doing the teaching.

Such situations do not only affect syllabus completion. They directly shape early literacy and numeracy, the stage where children learn to read, write and count for life.

QUESTIONS FOR THE SYSTEM

The school has appointed staff, yet the responsibility of teaching fell on a sweeper. The situation raised a basic question: if teachers are absent, who ensures accountability?

UNESCO’s State of the Education Report for India 2021 highlighted structural gaps in rural schooling — including nearly 120,000 single-teacher schools, 89 per cent located in rural areas, and a shortage of about 1.1 million teachers.

The report noted that teacher shortages and weak oversight directly affect the quality of education for disadvantaged children.

The incident is not only about one village school. It reflects administrative monitoring, supervision gaps and the disconnect between postings and actual classroom teaching.

For children, the impact is immediate. Learning time is lost. For parents, trust in the public system weakens. And for the administration, it becomes a test of whether action follows exposure.

As the video circulates and attention grows, the focus now shifts to whether authorities respond — and whether classrooms will have teachers where they are meant to stand.