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Indian Government Schools

Indian government schools serve about half of all schoolchildren, but learning outcomes, infrastructure and funding lag badly. The policy exists on paper (RTE Act, NEP 2020, Samagra Shiksha); the gap is in implementation and funding. Figures below are from a Hindi explainer (Jist, Aug 2026) citing UDISE+, ASER, PRS and NITI Aayog; some numbers come from auto-captions and are uncertain.

Key Points​

  • Scale (UDISE+ 2024-25): about 24.69 crore students, 14.72 lakh schools and over 1 crore teachers; about 69% of schools are government-run
  • Learning (ASER): only about 45% of class 5 government-school children can read a class 2 text, and only about a quarter can do basic division; about 43 lakh secondary dropouts in 2024-25
  • Closures (UDISE+ 2025-26): 877 government schools closed in a year (about 22 a day) while 2,106 private schools opened; government schools lost about 86 lakh students over 2023-24 to 2025-26 while private schools gained about 88 lakh; NITI Aayog counts about 94,000 government school closures in 10 years
  • Cost: a government school costs about ₹2,863 per child per year against about ₹25,000 for a private school (roughly 9x), so private fees are a large share of income for low and middle-income families; about 19.6 crore people live in households under ₹1.25 lakh a year and about 73.2 crore in the ₹1.25-5 lakh band (PRICE ICE 360)
  • Mid-day meal (PM POSHAN): ₹6.78 per day for classes 1-5 and ₹10.17 per day for classes 6-8

Funding Gap​

  • The Kothari Commission (1964-66) recommended spending 6% of GDP on education, repeated in the 1968 and 1986 policies and in NEP 2020
  • Actual spending in 2022-23 (Centre plus states, PRS analysis) was about 4.1% of GDP, and that covers higher education, teacher education and scholarships too
  • Most school money goes to salaries, then pensions, leaving little for infrastructure
  • Economist Jandhyala Tilak argues 6% is feasible with political will; Jean Dreze describes "islands of excellence in a sea of deprivation", meaning model schools starve the wider network; Reetika Khera asks whether the money reaches the child; CAG audits repeatedly flag teacher deployment, training, infrastructure and monitoring gaps

Comparison​

  • Finland: spends about 6.4% of GDP (Sweden about 7.3%); basic education is fee-free including books, meals, health care and transport; teachers need a Master's degree and have curriculum autonomy; the private school share is near zero
  • Singapore (2024): 336 schools, of which 244 government, 76 government-aided and 8 independent; the children of policymakers and teachers attend them
  • Core argument: in India officials, politicians and even many government teachers do not send their own children to these schools, so the people who could fix them have no stake in them

Context (July-August 2026)​

  • After the NEET paper-leak protest at Jantar Mantar (6 Jun-25 Jul 2026), school children in classes 6-10 in 10+ states protested over basic facilities, starting on 28 Jul 2026 in Fatehpur, UP (about 1,000 students). Demands: drinking water, working fans, clean toilets, roof repairs and teachers
  • Worm-infested mid-day meals were reported in several districts, and some Rajasthan and UP districts banned outsiders filming in government schools; the video's critique is that hiding the camera does not fix the problem
  • The problems are old; media attention (salience bias) surged only after one event