From school access to student retention: India's education challenge at 80

India has expanded schools, enrolment and literacy since Independence. But dropout rates and weak learning outcomes show that keeping students in education remains the next big challenge

As India marks its 80th Independence Day, its education system has undergone a massive expansion. The number of schools has grown nearly 10-fold since independence, while literacy has risen sharply. Today, India has roughly 247.2 million school students and 10.2 million teachers, as per UDISE+ 2025-26 data.

 

The first task after Independence was to build schools and bring children into the education system. Today, however, the nature of the challenge has changed. With education having expanded rapidly, the focus is increasingly on retaining students through secondary and higher-secondary school and ensuring that the years spent in school translate into learning.

 

 

From low literacy to mass schooling

 

The expansion of education is reflected in official data. According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2023-24, released by the National Sample Survey Office under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), India’s overall literacy rate for people aged seven and above stood at 80.9 per cent. India’s literacy rate was around 14 per cent at Independence. The 2011 Census had put the all-India literacy rate at 72.98 per cent. The gender gap has also narrowed. Around 1951, male literacy stood at 27.16 per cent, compared with 8.86 per cent for women. According to the PLFS, male literacy now stands at 87.2 per cent nationally, while female literacy is 74.6 per cent.

 

The school system has also expanded alongside literacy. According to UDISE+ 2025-26 data, the number of schools stands at roughly 1.47 million, serving 247.2 million students. Of these, 127.5 million are boys and 119.6 million are girls. The teaching workforce has also expanded significantly. Around 1951, India had about 751,000 teachers. According to the latest UDISE+ report, the number of school teachers has now reached 10.2 million.

 

The Right to Education Act, 2009, among other initiatives, have shaped the education landscape by expanding access to quality education, promoting equity and driving innovation in teaching and learning.

 

How did India build a larger school system?

 

   

India’s school system has expanded dramatically since Independence. According to official data, in 1950-51, there were about 209,671 primary schools, 13,596 middle schools and 7,416 high or higher-secondary schools. By 2024-25, the number of primary schools had risen to 730,000, while middle schools had increased to 412,805 and high and higher-secondary schools to nearly 306,942. India did not simply add more schools. It progressively built out the different stages of schooling needed to keep children moving beyond the primary years. That expansion created the physical foundation for the mass school system India has today.  

 

School enrolment tells a similar story. According to UDISE+ reports, India’s school enrolment expanded more than tenfold from nearly 23.8 million students in 1950-51 to nearly 246.9 million in 2024-25. Enrolment reached a recent peak of 264.4 million in 2020-21, but has since eased to 246.9 million in 2024-25.

 

What does the gender data tell about India’s journey?

 

 

Female literacy has seen a multi-fold increase since Independence, rising from 8.86 per cent in 1951 to 65.46 per cent in 2011. The latest data shows that the female literacy rate has further increased to 74.6 per cent in 2024. Yet, the gender gap persists, with male literacy at 87.2 per cent, leaving men 12.6 percentage points ahead of women, according to PLFS 2023-24.

 

Girls’ participation in secondary education has also improved. According to official data, the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) for girls at the secondary level rose from 75.5 per cent in 2014-15 to 83.4 per cent in 2025-26. Over the past 12 years, the Gender Parity Index (GPI) has improved at the secondary and higher-secondary levels, from 0.99 to 1.0 and from 0.98 to 1.1, respectively, between 2013-14 and 2025-26.

 

The new challenge confronting India

 

 

Despite the expansion in access, enrolment and female literacy, India now faces a significant challenge of secondary dropouts. The data shows that enrolment declines as the grades progress. According to UDISE+ 2024-25, the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) was 90.9 at the primary stage (Grades I-V) and 90.3 at the upper-primary stage (Grades VI-VIII). It declined to 78.7 at the secondary stage (Grades IX-X) and 58.4 at the higher-secondary stage (Grades XI-XII).

 

The decline builds over time. About 92.2 per cent of students move from primary to upper primary, while 86.6 per cent make it to secondary. But only 75.1 per cent transition from secondary to higher secondary, meaning nearly one in four students does not make it from Class 10 to Class 11. The numbers therefore show that the issue is no longer simply about children never enrolling, but about them not staying long enough to complete school.

 

                                                                 Transition Rates (2024–25)

 

Transition	Boys	Girls	Total
Primary → Upper Primary (Grades 5-6)	91.5%	93.0%	92.2%
Upper Primary → Secondary (Grades 8-9)	85.9%	87.3%	86.6%
Secondary → Higher Secondary (Grades 10-11)	72.4%	77.9%	75.11%

Source: UDISE+ 2024-25

  What challenges confront secondary schools?

 

The NITI Aayog School Education System India 2026 report suggests that while children are entering the system in large numbers, staying through all stages remains a challenge.

 

The system is effective at entry but weaker as students progress to higher classes. Gaps include transitions to a different school after Class 8 or 10, limited availability of higher-secondary sections nearby, uneven teacher deployment across subjects and infrastructure gaps. The Right to Education Act (2009) guarantees free and compulsory education only up to Class 8. This financial safety net falls away from secondary education onwards, affecting socio-economically disadvantaged groups and increasing reliance on scholarships and financial aid.

 

The Tenth Report (Eighteenth Lok Sabha) of the Committee on Estimates (2026-27) on affordable and quality education also flagged concerns around Classes 9 to 12. The panel said nearly 73 per cent of students drop out before finishing higher secondary. It also flagged gaps between curriculum design and implementation, shortages of textbooks and new application-based Board examination patterns that were creating academic stress and confusion, particularly for Classes 10 and 12. 

 

How have the states fared?

 

The NITI Aayog report shows regional differences in secondary dropout rates in 2024-25. Chandigarh recorded 2 per cent, Jharkhand 3.5 per cent, Lakshadweep 4.1 per cent, Uttarakhand 4.6 per cent and Kerala 4.8 per cent. At the other end, dropout rates were 20.0 per cent in West Bengal, 18.3 per cent in Arunachal Pradesh, 18.3 per cent in Karnataka and 17.5 per cent in Assam. Mizoram recorded 17.4 per cent, while Gujarat stood at 16.9 per cent.                                     Top States and UTs with Lowest Secondary Dropout Rates 

State / UT	Dropout Rate (%)
Chandigarh	2.0%
Jharkhand	3.5%
Lakshadweep	4.1%
Uttarakhand	4.6%
Kerala	4.8%

Source: UDISE+ 2024-25 

             Top States and UTs with Highest Secondary Dropout Rates 

State	Dropout Rate (%)
West Bengal	20.0%
Arunachal Pradesh	18.3%
Karnataka	18.3%
Assam	17.5%
Mizoram	17.4%
Gujarat	16.90%

Source: UDISE+ 2024-25

Educational performance also varies by region. Punjab and Kerala lead top indices like NITI Aayog’s School Education Quality Index (SEQI) 2026 for learning outcomes and literacy, whereas states like Bihar, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh historically rank at the bottom due to infrastructure and transition rate challenges.

 

What happened to higher education?

 

India’s higher-education system has also expanded sharply. At Independence in 1947, the country had only 17 universities and 636 colleges serving about 238,000 students. According to official data, as of 2025, there were 495 State Public Universities and more than 46,000 affiliated institutions. India’s higher education sector has recorded significant growth over the last decade, with total student enrolment scaling to 45 million in the 2023-24 academic year. According to the latest reports of the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) for 2022-23 and 2023-24, this marks a surge from 34.2 million in 2014-15.

 

The Gender Parity Index stood at 1.08 in 2023-24, while the GER for the 18-23 age group reached 30 in 2023-24; female GER was higher at 31.2. Yet higher education has its own retention problem. The National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) estimates student attrition in higher education at 25 per cent in India, a hidden crisis that prevents the country from fully realising its demographic dividend.  India’s first challenge after independence was getting children into school. Eight decades later, the country has built a vastly larger school and higher-education system, raised literacy and narrowed the gender gap, now the next task is to keep students in the system through Class 12 and make sure that time spent in school translates into age-appropriate learning.