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A NITI Aayog report has found that around 94,000 government schools closed over the last decade, an average of about 25 a day.
Government school enrolment fell by 2.26 crore students over the same period.
The share of government schools in total enrolment declined from 71% in 2005 to 49.24% in 2024-25.
Closures have largely occurred through school rationalisation, the merger of low-enrolment schools with others nearby.
Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh account for the largest numbers, raising concerns about access, equity and compliance with the Right to Education Act, 2009.
Rationalisation means merging a school with very few students into another school nearby, so that teachers and facilities are concentrated rather than spread thin. The administrative case for it is genuine: a school with fifteen children and one teacher covering five grades cannot teach well, and consolidating it can produce a school with adequate staff, a library and a functioning laboratory. The difficulty is distance. The Right to Education Act, 2009 works on the principle of a neighbourhood school — primary schooling within about one kilometre and upper primary within about three — because for a young child, particularly a girl, a school beyond walking distance is often effectively no school at all. When a merger pushes the nearest school past that range without providing transport, the predictable outcome is not better learning but dropping out. This is why the same policy can be described as efficiency by administrators and as denial of access by parents, and both descriptions can be accurate in different places.
Simple Analogy: Closing two half-empty bus routes to run one good one works if everyone can still reach a stop. If the new stop is five kilometres away, the improved bus is irrelevant to those who can no longer board it.
Inserted by the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2002, it makes free and compulsory education for children aged six to fourteen a fundamental right.
Operationalises Article 21A; it rests on the neighbourhood school principle and prescribes norms for infrastructure and pupil-teacher ratio. It came into force on 1 April 2010.
Replaced the 1986 policy, introduced the 5+3+3+4 structure and extended focus to early childhood care and education; it also endorses school complexes as a way of pooling resources.
The integrated centrally sponsored scheme for school education from pre-school to Class 12, through which such consolidation is funded.
GS Paper II > Issues relating to development and management of social sector services, education
General Awareness > Reports, education and polity
General Awareness > Reports and social sector data
General Awareness > Government reports and schemes
The merging of schools with low enrolment into nearby schools to pool teachers and facilities.
The RTE principle that a school must be available within a prescribed distance of a child's habitation.
The fundamental right to free and compulsory education for children aged six to fourteen, inserted by the 86th Amendment, 2002.
The National Education Policy that replaced the 1986 policy and introduced the 5+3+3+4 curricular structure.
The integrated centrally sponsored scheme covering school education from pre-school to Class 12.