Government schools still educate the majority of Indian children. They remain the most powerful instrument India has for social mobility, national integration, and economic growth. The recent figures of decline in government school enrollment are not a verdict. They are a warning—and an opportunity.
Since the release of the latest UDISE+ data and its subsequent placement before Parliament in recent months, the figures—widely reported in the press and summarised in this issue’s news digest—should prompt more than passing concern. Total school enrolment in India has fallen to 24.69 crore in 2024–25, a decline of about 11 lakh students from the previous year and the third consecutive year of contraction. Demography explains part of this story. But the deeper worry lies elsewhere: the disproportionate decline in government school enrollment, even as private schools continue to gain ground.
Government schools lost close to 59 lakh students in a single year, while private unaided schools added nearly the same number. At the same time, more than 65,000 government schools are now operating with fewer than ten students, and over 5,000 schools recorded zero enrollment in the current academic year. These are not just statistics. They represent public infrastructure without public trust.
India is too large, too unequal, and too diverse to imagine education functioning without a strong, credible government school system. Even today, government and government-aided schools educate roughly 60% of all Indian children—over 12 crore students, a number larger than the total population of many countries. Private schools, despite their visibility and rapid expansion, serve a minority. They cannot replace the public system, nor are they designed to. Education for profit, by its very nature, follows viability and demand—not constitutional obligation.
Beyond demographics: why parents are leaving
The decline we are witnessing, therefore, is not the retreat of an obsolete institution. It is a crisis of confidence.
It would be convenient to attribute the decline entirely to falling birth rates. India’s Total Fertility Rate has indeed fallen to around 2.0, and in several southern states it is well below replacement level. Unsurprisingly, the steepest enrollment drops are seen in primary classes (Classes 1–5), where numbers fell by nearly 34 lakh in a single year.
But demography alone does not explain why children are shifting from government schools to private ones, nor why thousands of public schools stand nearly empty while nearby private schools remain full. Parents are not simply responding to fewer births; they are making choices—often painful ones—based on what they believe their children will gain.
Those beliefs are shaped less by learning outcomes on paper and more by lived experience: teacher presence, classroom order, communication, English exposure, and a sense of seriousness. Many low-fee private schools may not outperform government schools academically, but they offer predictability. For parents, predictability often outweighs promises of reform.
The risk is not that government schools will disappear. The Constitution will not permit that. The risk is residualisation—that government schools become institutions only for those who have no alternative, while families with even modest means opt out.
Three examples that worked
The present moment demands attention not just to what is failing, but to what has demonstrably worked within India.
The Delhi model showed that government schools can regain public trust when they are treated as serious institutions.
Heavy investment in infrastructure was paired with school-level autonomy, empowered School Management Committees, sustained teacher training, and a curriculum that addressed student well-being alongside academics.
Most importantly, education was made a political priority, not an administrative afterthought. The result was not merely better buildings, but a perceptible shift in parental perception.
Tamil Nadu offers a different but equally instructive lesson. Its interventions focused on retention and aspiration rather than cosmetics. The Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme improved attendance in the foundational years.
The expansion of English-medium sections within government schools directly addressed parental demand.
Most strikingly, the 7.5% reservation in professional college admissions for government-school students created a powerful incentive for families to stay within the public system. Government schooling was no longer seen as a dead end, but as a pathway.
Then there is the quiet success of the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti. Navodaya schools educate rural children, many from first-generation learner families, at a standard comparable to elite urban schools—at a fraction of the private cost. Their success rests on three principles: selective entry, residential immersion, and consistent academic culture.
While Navodaya schools cannot be replicated everywhere, they prove that quality public education at scale is possible when governance is insulated from routine administrative drift.
These examples matter because they counter a dangerous fatalism: the idea that government schools are doomed to fail by design. They are not.
A quiet crisis, still reversible
India is not witnessing the collapse of public education. It is witnessing a quiet withdrawal of belief. That distinction matters. Belief can be rebuilt, but only through visible, sustained action.
Government schools still educate the majority of Indian children. They remain the most powerful instrument India has for social mobility, national integration, and economic growth.
The recent figures of decline in government school enrollment are not a verdict. They are a warning—and an opportunity. The question is not whether India can afford to fix its government schools. It is whether it can afford not to.