Clean water, working fans, and proper toilet facilities were among the key demands echoing through student protests across several parts of the country over the past two weeks, highlighting the state of India's public education system.
Nearly 84,000 government and government-aided schools closed between 2018–19 and 2025–26, while enrollment dropped by 15 million children. While the consolidation of low-enrolment schools to optimize resources contributed to fewer school units—and declining birth rates likely played a role in smaller intake—several other critical factors are at play. Inadequate infrastructure, poor learning outcomes, increased travel distances to merged schools, and plateauing public investment in education have also contributed to pushing children away from the system.
Shrinking space
Over the past seven years, the number of government and government-aided schools has declined from 1.17 million to 1.08 million, showed data from Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+), an educational management information system under the department of school education.
A recent report by policy think tank Niti Aayog, ‘School Systems in India’, noted the decline but argued that it didn’t necessarily indicate reduced access. “Instead, it reflects a consolidation of schooling infrastructure, particularly through measures such as school rationalisation, merging of under-enrolled institutions, and efforts to optimise resources…,” it said.
The focus was on improving quality, efficiency, and sustainability rather than only increasing the absolute number of institutions, it added.
Experts, while finding merits in the argument, also cautioned that such measures may have also resulted in more students falling out of the system.
When two or more schools are merged, the distance to schools increases for many students, leading them to drop out of the system, particularly for girls. “Merger of schools increases distance, which reduces students’ chances to gain access, especially for girls, where parents don't feel safe,” said Anita Rampal, professor and former dean, Faculty of Education, Delhi University.
Anil Swarup, former school education secretary, said school consolidation was needed in some cases. “There can be a reason for the closure of some schools when there are very few children in such schools.”
He, however, added that these measures needed to be complemented by state assistance to ensure students travelled to the other schools. Several empirical studies confirm how state-provided assistance such as conditional bicycle distribution in Bihar, subsidized bus transport in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, and widespread availability of the public transit system on concession in Kerala have played a role in increasing school enrolment and retention by overcoming distance and safety barriers.
Falling out of the system
Yet, a decline in the number of students enrolled in government and government-aided schools from 159 million in 2018-19 to 144 million in 2025-26 has raised eyebrows. Several experts, including the Niti Aayog report, highlighted that this is partly attributable to demographic shifts. It is indeed true that the number of school children has declined by nearly 20 million during the same period. However, there are more aspects than just demographic changes. During the same period, when enrolment in government and government-aided schools declined sharply, private schools gained seven million students, highlighting a shift towards private school systems.
In several states, the fall in enrolment exceeds the decline in population of school-going children. For example, the number of school-going children declined by 2.88 million in Uttar Pradesh, while enrolment dropped 3.32 million between 2018-19 and 2025-26. Similar trends are visible in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, among others.
The decline is visible across levels from primary to secondary level, with the highest decline visible at the primary education level. The 30-40% fall in the number of students graduating from primary to secondary levels is an age-old phenomenon and is far from resolved.
To be sure, government and government-aided schools still make up nearly three-fourths of the total institutions in the country and are a backbone of the education system in the country; their share has declined from roughly 80% in the past decade. “The sharp increase in dropout rates at the secondary level indicates that retention gains achieved at the primary stage are not fully translating into completion outcomes. This suggests the presence of academic, economic, or access-related barriers that intensify at higher grades,” the Niti Aayog report noted.
Poor facilities and learning outcomes
While students are leaving the public system, those who remain continue to face inadequate basic amenities and poor learning outcomes—gaps recently laid bare by student demonstrations across the country.
Take, for example, functional toilets: only 94.2% of government and government-aided schools have proper access. This translates to nearly 63,000 schools across the country lacking access to toilets. To be sure, improvements have happened, but not at a rapid pace. In 2018-19, access to toilets was already 93.7%. Government and government-aided schools lag private schools on several other fronts, like access to computers and internet. Though government schools are ahead in access to libraries.
One of the main reasons for the shift towards private schools is also poor learning outcomes in government schools in rural areas. Nearly three-fourths of Class III students in rural government schools can’t read Class II-level text, and Class III and Class V students can’t do subtraction or division, showed data from the latest Annual Status of Education Report (Aser) released by NGO Pratham.
These findings are only from rural areas, which is still crucial as more children rely on the public education system in these areas. Nearly 66% of students go to government schools in rural areas as against 30% of students in urban areas, data from the Comprehensive Modular Survey: Education report by the statistics ministry showed.
“When government schools don't have the basic "inputs", which include the required qualified teachers, the space, the accessible and engaging schools, the quality of the syllabi and textbooks, all the basic provisions required for better learning, it indicates that meaningful learning cannot happen, or that the 'indicators' are unsatisfactory and need immediate action,” said DU Professor Rampal.
Pragya Srivastava contributed to the story.
(This is the first part of a two-part series on India’s government schools. The second part will feature a state-wise analysis of public education trends.)