94000 government schools closed in the country in 10 years, 25 schools are being locked every day

Government School Report: A new report regarding government schools has attracted the attention of the country. In the last 10 years, a large number of government schools have been closed in India. Along with this, a big decline has also been recorded in the number of children studying in government schools. According to the NITI Aayog report, the main reasons for this change are the merger of two or more schools into one school, the declining birth rate and the challenges of retaining students in schools till higher classes. Many important figures related to the number of government and private schools, student enrollment and dropout have also come to light in the report.

94 thousand government schools closed in 10 years

According to the NITI Aayog report, about 94,000 government schools have been closed across the country in the last 10 years. This means that on an average 25 government schools were closed every day. According to the report, there were 11.07 lakh government schools in the country in the year 2014-15, which reduced to 10.13 lakh in 2024-25. During the same period, the number of government aided schools decreased from 83 thousand to 79 thousand. On the other hand, the number of private schools increased from 2.88 lakh to 3.39 lakh.

There was also a big decline in student enrollment

According to the report, the total number of students studying in schools has also decreased in the last decade. The total enrollment in 2014-15 was 26.95 crore, which decreased to 24.69 crore in 2024-25. During this period, enrollment of about 2.26 crore students has decreased.

Dropout increasing in big classes

It has been said in the report that the school dropout rate at the primary level is very low. The dropout rate from class 1st to 5th is only 0.3 percent. But from sixth to eighth class it increases to 3.5 percent and from ninth to tenth class it increases to 11.5 percent. At the same time, the rate of students going from eighth to ninth class decreased from 91.58 percent in 2014-15 to 86.6 percent in 2024-25. According to the report, this rate is 99.6 percent in Puducherry and Kerala, while it is much lower in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland.

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What is the reason for decreasing number of children?

According to NITI Aayog’s report School Education System in India: Temporal Analysis and Policy Roadmap for Quality Enhancement, there are many reasons for this decline. These include declining fertility rates, declining population of school-going children, closing down neighboring schools with fewer students and teaching all children in one school, and the challenge of retaining students in school till higher classes.

What does the report say on merger of schools?

According to the report, a policy was adopted to make better use of resources by merging nearby government schools with low student numbers. However, social workers working in the field of education believe that this has made it difficult for children to reach school in many areas. Especially for girls, due to increasing distance to school, in many cases education was affected and enrollment also decreased.

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