18,000 Government Schools Shut in Five Years as Private Schools Surge Across India, Data Reveals

India has experienced a drastic decline in the number of government schools with around 18, 000 schools closing down over the last five years while private unaided schools keep growing rapidly, official data submitted to Parliament reveals.

During the session, Union Minister of Education Jayant Chaudhary, shared this information in the Rajya Sabha, February 4th, responding to CPI(M) MP John Brittas' question. The Member of Parliament had requested the information regarding the number of government schools that are currently running, have been closed over the past five years, along with the state wise school closure data, growth of private schools and enrollment figures at the time of closure.

Referring to DISE and UDISE (Unified District Information System for Education) data, the minister stated that the number of government schools in India had gone down from 10, 32, 019 in 2020, 21 to 10, 13, 322 in 2024, 25, thus a total decline of 18, 697 schools over the five years has been witnessed.

During the same period, the number of private unaided schools was increased by 8, 475 only in the span of one year indicating a drastic change in the schooling landscape of India.

Among the states, Madhya Pradesh leads in the tally of government schools recently closed; the aggregate figure of schools shut down during the last five years is as high as 6, 902.

Next in the series of highest closures, we find Jammu and Kashmir (4, 382), Assam (2, 008), Odisha (1, 631), and Himachal Pradesh (1, 116) all comprising the sum of the most closures.

Still, a few states have decided to follow a different pattern from the majority of the states. First of all, Rajasthan started 1, 342 government schools while Bihar established 765 schools during the same time period. Meanwhile, Telangana barely had 42 government schools being added.

Minister Chaudhary stressed that education is a subject on the Concurrent List of the Constitution, which entails that the state governments and Union Territory administrations primarily hold the authority to make decisions on the opening, closing, staffing, and funding of schools.

Taking the data into consideration, MP John Brittas resorted to X (formerly Twitter) to express his concerns over what he referred to as the alarming decline of government schooling all over India. “Government schooling is getting smaller. "Private schooling is expanding, " he said.He cautioned that the trend could severely impact children from rural and poor families who mainly rely on public education.

Experts on education think the data raise some vital questions about the availability, fairness, and what lies ahead for public schools in India at a time when ensuring education for all and improving learning outcomes remain the country's greatest challenges.