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The reality on the ground

Infrastructure gaps are still large. Of India's over 14.71 lakh schools, 1.52 lakh lack functional electricity, and 67,000 schools — 46,000 of them government-run — lack functional toilets. Only 43.5% of government schools have computers for teaching, compared to 70.9% of private unaided schools, and disabled-friendly toilets exist in just 33.2% of government schools.

Teacher shortages persist. India still has nearly a lakh (100,000) single-teacher schools, and many government schools lack subject-specific teachers, especially in middle school grades.

Enrollment is shifting away from government schools even as private options strain family budgets: the proportion of children in government schools fell from 72.9% in 2022 to 66.8% in 2024, partly because parents believe private schools offer better discipline, stronger English instruction, and greater accountability, and because families that had moved to government schools during pandemic-era financial stress are returning to private ones as incomes recover.

But learning outcomes are actually improving, and faster in government schools than private ones. This is the more hopeful part of the picture. Class 3 government-school students able to read a Class 2-level text improved from 16.3% in 2022 to 23.4% in 2024, and between 2022 and 2024, government schools saw subtraction proficiency in Standard 3 rise 36.6% (from 20.2% to 27.6%), versus just 10.2% growth in private schools — the strongest recovery in reading and arithmetic in a decade. Analysts largely credit NEP 2020's focus on foundational literacy and numeracy for this shift.

But the base remains low. 76.6% of Class 3 students still cannot read a Class 2-level text, and 66.3% of Class 3 and 70% of Class 5 students cannot do basic arithmetic.

Inequality compounds it all. Schools in poorer areas are typically underfunded and lack both basic infrastructure and quality teachers, widening the gap between disadvantaged children and everyone else. Sleepy Classes

The bottom line There's a real tension between the two halves of this story: nominal budgets keep rising and learning outcomes in government schools are genuinely improving faster than in private ones — a rare positive signal. But money that's promised often isn't fully spent, basic infrastructure (electricity, toilets, computers, teachers) is still missing in a meaningful share of schools, and government schools are losing enrollment share to a growing perception — not always matched by outcomes — that private schools are better. Education still gets a fairly modest slice (around 2.6%) of the total central budget relative to the scale of the challenge.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DblbGQOBgzI/

Protests erupted at Chhapra Engineering College in Bihar as female students alleged that the principal’s driver and a guard forcibly entered the girls' hostel rooms at midnight.

Denouncing this severe safety violation and administrative intimidation students are demanding a strict impartial investigation into the misconduct.