Key Points
More than 1.19 lakh schools lack electricity, while 98,592 schools do not have functional girls’ toilets, according to the NITI Aayog report.
Over 1.04 lakh schools are operating with a single teacher, with major vacancies concentrated in Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh.
The report flags rising dropout rates at the secondary level, weak learning outcomes and growing dependence on private schools.
NITI Aayog’s latest report on India’s school education system, released on 7 May 2026, has highlighted major gaps in infrastructure, staffing and learning outcomes across the country, despite improvements in enrolment and access over the past decade.
The report, titled School Education System in India: Temporal Analysis and Policy Roadmap for Quality Enhancement, presents national and state-level data on school infrastructure, enrolment, teacher availability and educational performance.
India’s school system now includes 14.71 lakh schools serving more than 24.69 crore students, making it one of the largest education systems in the world. However, the report said structural weaknesses continue to affect quality and continuity in education.
According to the report, 1.19 lakh schools across India still do not have functional electricity. Nearly 98,592 schools lack functional girls’ toilets, while 61,540 schools have no usable toilets at all. Another 14,505 schools do not have access to water supply, and 59,829 schools lack handwashing facilities.
The report noted that although toilet coverage has improved over the years, the absence of gender-sensitive infrastructure continues to affect attendance and retention among adolescent girls.
Only 51.7% of government secondary schools currently have science laboratories, limiting practical and inquiry-based learning opportunities.
Teacher shortages emerged as another major concern. More than 1,04,125 schools in India are functioning with only one teacher, accounting for over 7% of all schools. Around 89% of these schools are located in rural areas. Bihar recorded the highest number of elementary teacher vacancies at 2,08,784, followed by Jharkhand with 80,341 vacancies and Madhya Pradesh with 47,122. In Jharkhand, the pupil-teacher ratio in government secondary schools stands at 47:1, significantly above the ideal range of 10:1 to 18:1.
The report said single-teacher schools force one individual to manage multiple grades and subjects simultaneously, while also handling administrative responsibilities and mid-day meal duties.
Data from Project SATH-E cited in the report revealed that many teachers scored below 60-70% in subject papers of the grades they teach. Average marks in primary-level mathematics remained around 46%, while only 2% of teachers scored above 70% in Mathematics assessments. It added that around 14% of teaching days are lost to non-academic duties such as election work, surveys and administrative tasks.
While the country has more than 7.3 lakh primary schools, the number drops to only around 1.42 lakh secondary schools. Only about 5% of schools provide continuous education from Classes 1 to 12. The report stated that this “pyramidal structure” forces students to change schools after Classes 5, 8 and 10, contributing to higher dropout rates and disruptions in learning.
At the secondary stage, the national dropout rate stands at 11.5%. West Bengal recorded the highest dropout rate at 20%, followed by Arunachal Pradesh and Karnataka at 18.3% each, and Assam at 17.5%. The report also noted deterioration in secondary-level dropout rates in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Bihar’s secondary dropout rate increased from 2.98% to 9.3%, while Uttar Pradesh’s rose from 0.52% to 3%.
The report also highlighted widening learning gaps despite increased enrolment. Citing ASER 2024 findings, it said nearly half of Grade 5 students in rural India cannot read a Grade 2 text.
At the same time, enrolment in government schools has steadily declined from 71% in 2005 to 49.24% in 2024-25, while private schools now account for 44.01% of all secondary schools. Nearly 7,993 schools across the country reported zero student enrolment. West Bengal accounted for the highest number of such schools with 3,812, followed by Telangana.
According to the report, many parents increasingly prefer private schools due to perceptions of better English-medium education, discipline and employability. However, it warned that low-fee private schools also show weak learning outcomes, poor infrastructure and shortages of trained teachers.
NITI Aayog has proposed a series of reforms to address these issues, including the creation of State and District Task Forces on school quality, expansion of digital learning infrastructure, strengthening foundational literacy and numeracy, reducing non-teaching burdens on teachers and integrating Artificial Intelligence into classrooms for pedagogical innovation.
The report said India’s education system now requires “system-wide transformation” rather than incremental reforms to improve quality, equity and learning outcomes.
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