Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan speaks in the Lok Sabha on December 1, 2025. Photo: Sansad TV via ANI
The number of government schools across the country has fallen over the past six years, data tabled by the Union government in Parliament on Monday (Dec 1, 2025) showed.
The data presented by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan from the Unified District Information System for Education Plus further showed a steady increase in the number of government schools with less than 10 or zero enrollment in the last 3 years.
The data was compiled in response to a starred question in the Lok Sabha by Congress MPs Karti Chidambaram and Amrinder Singh Raja Warring. It showed there were 52,300 state schools with fewer than 10 or zero enrollments in 2022-23, a figure which rose to more than 65,000 in 2024-25.
States like West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana accounted for the highest number of these schools. Interestingly, the data presented revealed that the number of teachers employed in these schools has increased from 1.26 lakh in 2022-23 to 1.44 lakh in 2024-25.
In his reply, Mr. Pradhan noted that while education is on the concurrent list of the Constitution, “recruitment, remuneration and rational deployment of teachers falls within the purview of the respective State Governments and Union Territory (UT) administrations”.
Responding to questions about government schools being closed, merged or converted due to low or zero enrolment, the government presented UDISE+ data showing an overall decline in the number of schools across all states and UTs.
The dataset revealed that the country had 10.32 lakh government schools in 2019–20, which fell to 10.13 lakh in 2024–25, without specifying how much of this reduction was due to closure, merger or repurposing.
When asked about the status and annual reports of government schools, Mr. Pradhan said that as per regulations issued by the Ministry of Expenditure in 2016, state and UT governments submit annual and audit reports first to their respective assemblies before sending them to the Center for presentation in Parliament. Union territories without legislatures send reports directly to the Centre. The government did not specify when the last such report was submitted.
Published – 01 Dec 2025 22:26 IST
