New Delhi: Indian schools are showing signs of improvement across many parameters, including reduction in dropouts, more teachers and improving infrastructure, says the education ministry’s latest Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) report on school education in India for 2025-26. Data for the annual report has been gathered from more than 14 lakh schools across India.
The report highlights greater student retention in school, especially at the secondary level, with the dropout rate of 13.8 percent in 2022-23 falling to 7 percent in 2025-26. At the same time, preparatory stage dropout rates have also fallen to 1.8 percent from 8.7 percent in 2022-23.
Improvement is also reflected by other indicators in the report such as Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) at the secondary level, which has increased from 68.5 percent to 71.7 percent over the past year. Transition rates have also seen overall improvement, including in foundational to preparatory, preparatory to middle, and middle to secondary education.
According to the report, a major reason for the improvement in the secondary stage is an increase in the number of schools now offering secondary education due to which children are now studying beyond middle levels.
India now has over 1.02 crore school teachers, up significantly from approximately 94 lakh teachers in 2022-23. Its impact is also seen in the improved pupil-teacher ratio (PTR).
The National Education Policy (NEP) had set the teacher student ratio at 30:1 but the ratios now are even below this benchmark with PTR at the foundational, preparatory, middle, and secondary levels now at 10, 12, 17, and 21 respectively which indicates that students are getting more personalised and detailed attention from teachers.
There has also been an improvement in school infrastructure. About 70 percent of the schools have access to computers, a figure that was just around 48 percent in 2022-23. Access to the Internet in schools has also improved by around 15 percent over the last four years; around 68 percent of schools have access now.
Not all is rosy though. Unlike infrastructure improvement, the gain in gender representation in schools has remained slow. Women account for 54.9 percent of all school teachers in 2025-26, which is slow growth as the same figure was at 52 per cent in 2022-23.
Further, nearly a third of schools do not have access to the Internet, which is a dealbreaker for the NEP that envisions students effectively using online and digital education to learn.
Meanwhile, the report finds a decline in the number of zero-student schools compared to 2022-23. Considering last year’s figure, however, suggests that trends in this data show fluctuation rather than a consistent trajectory.
Accessibility is also a concern as nearly 42 percent of schools still don’t have ramps with handrails. There has also been a slight decline in schools with playgrounds, and the adoption of rainwater harvesting systems is quite low. In sum, the report shows major improvements in the schooling system but also reveals gaps that need to be addressed.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)