19 February 2025

Declining trend in enrolment in government schools

There is declining trend in school enrolment over the past decade, this means India may become older even before becoming richer.

@ 15.5 million drop in school enrolment since 2018 - 2019, ie. 6%
School enrolment had plummeted by 24.51 million or 9.45% in the past decade, this is inspite free and compulsory till elementary level is being provided under the Right to education act, 2009.

U-DISE+ data 2022 - 23 to 2023 - 24

Unified District Information System for Education Plus (U-DISE+) data for 2022 -2023 to 2023 -2024 released by Ministry of Education.

Enrolments in multiple schools

The reports stated that seeding aadhaar number with enrolment eliminates multiple enrolments. It has been long suspected that some children are enrolled in multiple schools.

Enrolment in private unaided schools increased

The enrolment in government and government aided schools saw a significant decline while the private unaided schools saw an increase.

Decline in school going population

The country's school going population in the age group of 6 - 17 years has also declined by 17.30 million or 5.78% over the past decade.

Number of school declined

The number of schools in country also declined 5.1% over the past decade.

Decline in fertility rate (NHFS)

This should be seen in the light of India's fertility rate declined to 2.01% in 2022, below the replacement level of 2.1%

Transition to shrinking working age population

This shows that the population bulge is shifting right, and we will see the transition to a shrinking working age population.

August 2025

Enrolment down by 25 lakh

Between the age of 3 and 11 years, dropped by nearly 25 lakhs in 2024 - 2025 compared to previous year figures

All time low

The figures has reached an all time low since 2018 - 2019
This time, the downfall is seen in across government, government aided, private and other schools

Lower dropouts

Dropout rates have reduced as those joining schools are not leaving compared with earlier years.

GER improved

GER - Gross Enrolment Ratio - the total enrolment in a specific level of education and expressed as a percentage of eligible official school age population, based on census
GER improved at the middle and secondary level

Reasons

Demographic shifts with falling of birth rates and total fertility rates below replacement rates
- Except Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Meghalaya, all states have achieved fertility rates below the replacement levels
- Currently the average India's total fertility rate is 1.9% as of 2021 - NHFS, 2021

Census 2026

Once the 2026 census data is available, a lot of these projections will be modified.