Pradip Dutta Roy

At a Teachers’ Day programme recently, Assam Education Minister Ranoj Pegu highlighted a disturbing statistic. He said that around 5.5 lakh students aged 15–18 who had enrolled in government schools this year stopped attending after two or three months. The government has reportedly engaged an NGO to conduct a month-long field study to identify the reasons for this dropout and suggest measures to bring the students, particularly girls, back to school.

The development highlights some of the continuing challenges before India’s government-school system.

The issue has gained wider attention following the Kokrajhar Janata Party (CJP)’s “Save Government Schools” campaign, which has raised questions about school infrastructure, teacher shortages, teaching time and accountability. Its demands have generated a welcome national debate. How justified are these concerns when examined against available evidence?

What is the CJP demanding?

The CJP’s campaign broadly focuses on three areas: restoring safe and functional school infrastructure; ensuring adequate teachers and teaching time; and making government schools sufficiently reliable for ministers, bureaucrats, teachers and other influential sections to trust them for their own children.

The interesting point is that most of these demands are already recognised in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The policy emphasises equitable and inclusive quality education, foundational literacy and numeracy, safe infrastructure, adequate and trained teachers, conceptual learning instead of rote memorisation, support for disadvantaged children, examination reform and greater transparency and accountability.

Thus, the central issue is not whether these objectives are desirable—they clearly are—but how effectively they are being implemented.

The state of government schools

Public perception of government-school infrastructure is often more negative than the national picture suggested by official data.

According to UDISE+ 2024–25, India has roughly 10 lakh government schools and about one crore teachers. Reported availability of facilities includes functional electricity in 92.3% of schools, drinking water in 99%, functional toilets in 95.8%, libraries in 93.4%, computers in 60.2%, internet in 58.6% and smart classrooms in 28.6%. The average government school has 6.9 teachers and the average pupil-teacher ratio is 24.1.

Yet nearly one lakh government schools still have only one teacher. There are also substantial state-wise variations.

Moreover, availability does not necessarily mean quality. Unsafe buildings, inadequate maintenance and non-functional facilities remain concerns. Recent Gen Alpha protests and the CJP’s civic audits have brought some of these deficiencies into public focus.

Nevertheless, it would be inaccurate to portray the entire government-school infrastructure as being in a state of collapse. India has made considerable progress in expanding basic facilities. The more important challenge now is to ensure quality, functionality and equitable distribution.

Private schools: choice, quality and inequality

Private education has become a major component of Indian schooling. In 2024–25, around 3.40 lakh recognised unaided private schools catered to approximately 9.59 crore students.

Broadly, private schools range from low-fee neighbourhood schools to middle-fee English-medium schools and high-fee premium institutions. Their facilities and quality vary enormously.

The financial gap is equally striking. Government data from the 2017–18 national survey put average annual expenditure per primary student at around 1,253 in government institutions, compared with approximately 14,485 in private unaided institutions. Actual private-school fees today are considerably higher in many places.

However, private-school outcomes cannot be viewed entirely as a product of school quality. Family income, parental education, private tuition, access to books and technology, and the home learning environment all influence a child’s performance.

Private schools therefore offer greater choice and, in many cases, better facilities, but their expansion can also deepen social and economic inequality. The objective should not be to eliminate private education, but to ensure that a family’s ability to pay does not become the principal determinant of a child’s educational future.

Government schools have a crucial role here because they can provide quality education at relatively low cost to children from all sections of society.

The Delhi experience

The Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government gave government-school education considerable priority. Education expenditure increased from about 6,554 crore in 2014–15 to 16,396 crore in 2024–25. Government figures indicate that 22,711 new classrooms were constructed between 2015 and 2024, along with improvements in school buildings, laboratories, libraries, smart classrooms, sports facilities and furniture.

Perhaps more significant was the change in public perception. Government schools increasingly came to be regarded as credible alternatives to private schools.

Board results provided some evidence of this improvement. In 2025, the Class XII pass rate in Delhi government schools was reported at 90.5%, compared with 87.9% in private unaided schools. In 2024, the government-school pass rate was 96.99%.

However, the transformation was not complete. Teacher shortages, differences in quality between schools and double-shift schooling in some institutions remained concerns. More importantly, board examination results cannot adequately measure foundational learning.

The Delhi experience should therefore be recognised as a significant strengthening of government education and public confidence, but claims that the entire system became “world-class” would be excessive.

Does more spending mean better education?

Public investment is essential, but higher expenditure does not automatically translate into proportionately better learning outcomes.

In 2026–27, Delhi allocated 21.1% of its total expenditure to education, while Assam allocated 17.5%. Both were above the average of 14.5% for Indian states in 2025–26. Kerala allocated 13.6%, Uttar Pradesh 12.8% and Tamil Nadu 12.2%.

Yet learning outcomes do not follow the same ranking.

Teacher-pupil ratios tell a similar story. In 2024–25, at the primary level, the ratio was approximately 19 students per teacher in Assam, 20 in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, 22 in Kerala, but 29 in Delhi. At the upper-primary level, the figures were around 13 in Assam, 18 in Tamil Nadu, 18 in Kerala, 22 in Uttar Pradesh and 28 in Delhi.

Clearly, the amount allocated to education is important, but money alone does not determine educational quality.

The ultimate test is learning. According to ASER 2024, among rural government-school students, the proportion of Class V children able to read a Class II-level text was about 58% in Kerala, 50.5% in Uttar Pradesh, 37% in Tamil Nadu and 32.5% in Assam, compared with 44.8% nationally.

For Class VIII government-school students, the corresponding figures were approximately 82% in Kerala, 67% in Uttar Pradesh, 62% in Tamil Nadu and 61% in Assam.

Uttar Pradesh is particularly interesting: between 2022 and 2024, the reading ability of Class V government-school students improved substantially despite its education expenditure being a smaller share of the budget than that of Delhi or Assam.

The lesson is clear: investment creates the foundation for improvement, but the effectiveness of that investment determines whether it reaches the child in the classroom.

The way forward

Government education needs a coordinated reform strategy rather than simply larger budgets. First, teacher shortages must be addressed. Vacancies should be filled promptly, subject-specific teachers appointed where required, and regular professional development provided.

Second, foundational learning must become the priority. Every child should acquire adequate reading, writing and basic numeracy skills by Class III, with additional support for those falling behind. Third, infrastructure must be made safe and functional. Every school should have adequate classrooms, electricity, drinking water, functional toilets, libraries, playgrounds, disability-friendly facilities and essential teaching materials.

Fourth, learning outcomes must be measured regularly. Pass percentages alone are inadequate. Reading comprehension, writing, mathematics and subject knowledge should be assessed, with targeted intervention in weaker schools. Fifth, school-level accountability must improve. Head teachers should have sufficient administrative authority, while teacher attendance, teaching time and student progress should be monitored.

Sixth, technology and libraries should be expanded, but technology should complement rather than replace teachers. Finally, parents and local communities must have a meaningful role in school oversight. School Management Committees should be strengthened, and public expenditure should be assessed not merely by the amount spent but by its impact on learning.

Beyond political rhetoric

The CJP has demanded that ministers and senior officials demonstrate their faith in government schools by enrolling their own children in them. Similar demands have sometimes been made regarding government-school teachers. This is certainly debatable and may even be viewed as political symbolism. Yet the uncomfortable truth behind the demand cannot simply be dismissed.

The legitimate public expectation is simpler: government schools should become good enough that parents voluntarily choose them.

The Delhi experience demonstrates that this is not entirely unrealistic.

The recent Gen Alpha and CJP campaigns are relevant because they seek to move the debate beyond political rhetoric and bring the actual condition of schools under public scrutiny. Their audits and campaigns may sometimes create confrontation, but they also raise an important question: are governments delivering what official policies promise?

The objective should not be to discredit government schools or glorify private education. Nor should education become merely another arena for political confrontation. The real challenge is to build a public education system that parents trust, teachers are proud to work in, children want to attend, and society can rely upon.

The growing debate should therefore be seen as an opportunity. Governments must now move beyond enrolment figures, infrastructure statistics and examination results and focus on the one measure that ultimately matters: whether every child is actually learning.

(The views expressed are personal. The author is an advocate practising in the Gauhati High Court.)