India: Rising GDP, Falling Classrooms

A nation that commands a $3.9 trillion GDP cannot afford to educate its own children. A republic that positions itself as a global knowledge superpower ranks 114th in worldwide education indices. This is not a development story. This is a governance failure of historic proportions.

India entered 2024 as the world's fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP, surpassing Japan, projecting an image of sovereign ambition and digital prowess. Prime Ministers speak of Viksit Bharat  a Developed India by 2047. Finance Ministers announce record education budgets. Yet the statistical reality of India's education sector constitutes a profound and damning rebuke to every such declaration. According to the World Top 20 Project's 2024 global education rankings, India stands at rank 114 out of 193 countries  lagging behind nations with a fraction of its economic resources. In the United Nations Human Development Index's Education Component, India occupies position 132, placing it firmly in the lower quartile of nations on a metric that measures something as fundamental as how long its citizens go to school. The OECD's Education at a Glance 2025 report revealed that India's enrolment in pre-primary education for children between ages three and five stands at a mere 49.9 percent ranking 42nd out of 42 measured countries, a metric that places India at the absolute bottom of the table among comparable nations. These are not numbers that belong to a fourth-largest economy. They are numbers that demand institutional accountability, legislative scrutiny, and, above all, moral reckoning. India is home to over 1.5 billion people. Approximately 26 per cent of this population, nearly 400 million individuals, are below the age of 15. This is not merely a demographic challenge; it is a civilisational obligation. The state is constitutionally bound, under Article 21-A of the Constitution of India (as inserted by the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2002), to provide free and compulsory education to all children between the ages of six and fourteen. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, the RTE Act, translated this constitutional mandate into justiciable law. The reality on the ground tells a very different story. As per Ministry of Education data, approximately 10 lakh teaching positions across government schools at elementary, primary, secondary, and higher secondary levels remain vacant. India has a student-teacher ratio of 27.2 at the primary level, among the highest in the world according to OECD data, meaning that in many classrooms, one teacher is expected to educate nearly thirty children, often across multiple grade levels simultaneously, in buildings that frequently lack functional toilets, libraries, drinking water, and electricity.

The ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) 2024 found that only 23.4 per cent of Class 3 students in government schools could read a simple paragraph, an indictment of the foundational literacy crisis gripping the country's public education apparatus. The same report recorded that 65 per cent of children enrolled in Grades 2 through 5 in government primary schools could not read a simple passage, a figure that would be unconscionable in any country that considers itself a serious nation. Government school enrolment, meanwhile, is in decline. ASER 2024 documented a fall from 72.9 per cent in 2022 to 66.8 per cent in 2024, as families increasingly abandon the public system for private institutions not out of preference, but out of desperation. The private school sector in India is frequently invoked as evidence that the market can deliver what the state cannot. This argument is both factually partial and morally dangerous. India currently has approximately 25 per cent of its total schools operating as fee-charging private institutions. These schools, in aggregate, tend to produce superior outcomes, better-equipped classrooms, more reliable teacher attendance, and higher board examination pass rates. However, the fee structures of these institutions, particularly at the upper-middle tier of the private school market, have grown to levels that effectively price out the overwhelming majority of Indian families. In metropolitan cities, annual tuition fees at reputable private schools typically range from ₹1.5 lakh to ₹5 lakh, excluding transport, uniforms, extracurricular fees, and mandatory digital device requirements. For a family in the upper-middle income bracket earning ₹12-15 lakh annually, allocating ₹3-5 lakh per child per year for schooling constitutes a fiscal burden that compresses every other expenditure. For families earning below ₹6 lakh per annum, which constitutes the overwhelming majority of the Indian middle class, such fees are categorically unaffordable. Education has thus ceased to be a public good in India. It has become a commodity, accessible in its quality form only to those who can afford market rates. The consequence is that the socio-economic stratification of Indian society is being reproduced and entrenched in the classroom before a child reaches adolescence. The 25 per cent reservation for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) students under Section 12(1)(c) of the RTE Act was designed to interrupt precisely this cycle of exclusion precisely. In practice, compliance has been deeply uneven across states, with many private schools engaging in litigation, creative accounting, and bureaucratic obstruction to minimise their obligations under this provision. If the school system represents a slow and systemic failure, the examination ecosystem represents an acute and accelerating crisis. India's national-level entrance examinations, principally the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) for undergraduate medical admissions, the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for engineering, and the University Grants Commission's National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) for research fellowships and faculty eligibility, collectively determine the professional trajectories of millions of young people annually. They are also demonstrably compromised. The 2024 NEET-UG controversy constituted the most significant institutional scandal in Indian higher education in recent memory. On May 5, 2024, over 2.4 million students appeared for the examination at approximately 4,500 centres across 600 cities. When results were declared on June 4, 2024, ten days earlier than scheduled, a statistical anomaly of extraordinary proportions emerged: 67 students had obtained perfect scores of 720 out of 720, compared to a historical average of two to four such students per year. Of these 67, six had appeared at the same centre in Jhajjar, Haryana. The Supreme Court of India, in its hearing of the matter, observed that the unprecedented number of students obtaining perfect scores constituted a significant red flag warranting investigation. The Central Bureau of Investigation subsequently confirmed that the question paper was leaked on the morning of the examination in Patna, Bihar, where candidates had allegedly paid between ₹30 lakh and ₹50 lakh to obtain the paper in advance. Burnt remnants of photocopied question papers were recovered from a residence in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. The Supreme Court of India formally declared the paper leak an "undisputed fact." The UGC-NET June 2024 examination, administered on June 18, was cancelled the following day after the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre provided inputs suggesting the exam's integrity had been compromised, with the paper subsequently found to have been leaked on the Darknet.

These were not isolated incidents. As per the investigative record compiled in the aftermath of the 2024 scandal, since its inception in November 2017, the National Testing Agency has conducted around 66 examinations, of which irregularities were reported in at least 12, impacting a total of over 75.61 lakh aspirants. Paper leaks have been recorded in NEET, UGC-NET, JEE Mains, CBSE Class 10 and 12 examinations, SSC Combined Graduate Level examinations, and numerous state-level recruitment tests. In response to this escalating crisis, Parliament enacted the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, which provides for imprisonment of five to ten years and a minimum fine of ₹1 crore for organised paper leak offences. The Act was passed. The leaks continued. The ecosystem that enables examination fraud is sophisticated and deeply entrenched. It involves a nexus of corrupt officials within examination bodies, employees at private printing presses handling question paper production, transporters, coaching centre operators, and financial intermediaries, a supply chain of organised crime whose primary commodity is academic certificates that the state has failed to make legitimately accessible. The government school teacher represents both the greatest hope and the most visible failure of India's public education infrastructure. Over one million government school teachers are officially employed across the country. The question of how many are present and teaching on any given school day is one that India's educational governance apparatus has consistently failed to answer satisfactorily. Academic research presents figures that oscillate between troubling and alarming. A landmark World Bank study found that 23.6 per cent of teachers were absent during unannounced school visits, with the estimated annual salary cost of unauthorised teacher absence reaching $1.5 billion. Earlier research published by Devarajan and Shah found that average teacher absenteeism at the national level was approximately 25 per cent, rising to 38.3 per cent in Bihar and 39.3 per cent in Jharkhand, the states where educational deprivation is already most acute.

It is essential to distinguish, as the Azim Premji Foundation's research has correctly emphasised, between authorised absence, which includes government-mandated duties such as election work, census operations, and vaccination campaigns, and wilful truancy. Teachers are routinely deployed for non-educational functions by the state, reducing their classroom availability without any corresponding accountability for learning outcomes. This systematic misuse of teacher time represents a policy failure entirely distinct from individual misconduct, though both ultimately damage the same child. What is not in dispute is the qualitative deficit. Studies have found that in states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, three-fourths of teacher applicants could not complete simple percentage calculations at the Grade 5 level, a finding that casts fundamental doubt on the professional competence of a significant proportion of the public school teaching workforce. In a survey of 3,000 Indian government schools, research documented that only one principal had formally reported a teacher for disciplinary action related to absence, suggesting that institutional accountability mechanisms are, for practical purposes, inoperative. The Chandigarh University MMS scandal of September 2022, while not a teaching-quality issue per se, exposed another dimension of institutional collapse in higher education: the failure of university administrations to protect student safety and dignity, the reflexive impulse to suppress and minimise wrongdoing to protect institutional reputation, and the incapacity of political leadership to respond with measured, evidence-based action rather than unverified social media amplification. Multiple senior political figures, including sitting ministers, shared unverified claims about the incident on public platforms, a behaviour that would be inconceivable in any legislature where members possessed sufficient education and institutional discipline to distinguish verified information from rumour.

The most fundamental question in India's education crisis is not merely whether schools work, but whether the people responsible for making them work are equipped to do so.

India's Parliament comprises 543 elected Members of the Lok Sabha and 245 nominated and elected members of the Rajya Sabha, alongside 4,120 Members of Legislative Assemblies across the 28 states and 8 union territories. These legislators collectively hold constitutional responsibility for education policy, a subject that falls on the Concurrent List of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India, rendering it a shared domain of Union and state legislative competence. The educational profile of India's elected legislature presents a complex picture. According to the Association for Democratic Reforms' analysis of the 2024 Lok Sabha general elections, approximately 105, or 19 per cent of winning candidates, declared educational qualifications between Class 5 pass and Class 12, while 420 or 77 percent reported holding graduate degrees or higher. Seventeen winning candidates were diploma holders, and one winner declared themselves as merely literate. Notably, all 121 candidates who declared themselves illiterate lost the election, suggesting that the electorate does apply some minimum threshold of educational credibility to its representatives, even without formal legal compulsion.

The Constitution of India under Articles 84, 102, 173, and the Representation of the People Act, 1951, prescribes no minimum educational qualification for membership of Parliament or State Legislatures. The requirement, as it stands, is merely functional literacy: the ability to read and write in any language recognised by the Constitution. Panchayat-level elections in Haryana and Rajasthan have imposed minimum educational qualifications following legislative amendments in 2014 and 2015, respectively, a requirement more stringent for village-level representatives than for those who legislate for the nation.

The practical consequences of this gap manifest visibly. Parliamentary debates on education policy are frequently characterised by procedural disruptions, partisan point-scoring, and the notable absence of substantive legislative engagement with evidence-based policy questions. Sessions of the House that should be devoted to interrogating the systemic failures of the NTA, debating structural reforms to the RTE Act, or legislating comprehensive teacher accountability frameworks are instead consumed by questions of parliamentary privilege, disruptions over unrelated political controversies, and the conspicuous non-attendance of members. Research published in ScienceDirect in 2025 found that Members of Parliament with postgraduate qualifications or above asked 126 more questions during a parliamentary term compared to non-postgraduate MPs, with the effect being significant. Narrowly elected postgraduate MPs asked 15 more questions on economic and financial affairs than non-postgraduate MPs. Constituencies that elected educated leaders also experienced improved development outcomes. The data, in other words, confirms what common sense would suggest: the educational attainment of legislators correlates meaningfully with the quality of legislative engagement and constituency outcomes. India's governance architecture, from the Union cabinet to the district administration, is further structured around a reservation system that, whatever its constitutional justification in rectifying historical discrimination has, in certain operational contexts, prioritised demographic representativeness over demonstrated competence in sectors where technical expertise is indispensable. The administration of a national examination system, the regulation of university accreditation, and the design and implementation of a national curriculum are functions that demand specialised knowledge, and they are being discharged in an institutional environment where accountability for outcomes is systematically weak.

India's elevation to the status of the world's fourth-largest economy is a legitimate and consequential achievement. It represents decades of economic reform, demographic dividend, and entrepreneurial energy. It should not, however, be permitted to serve as a rhetorical shield against accountability for what that growth has failed to deliver.

The Human Development Index, published annually by the United Nations Development Programme, ranks India at 134 out of 193 nations as of its most recent report, a position that reflects life expectancy, per capita income, and, critically, educational attainment. A nation ranked 4th in GDP and 134th in human development is not a success story. It is a structural anomaly that should alarm every economist, policymaker, and citizen who values the connection between growth and welfare.

India allocates approximately 4.6 per cent of its GDP to education, a figure that, while improved, remains below the UNESCO-recommended benchmark of 6 per cent and is dwarfed in per-pupil terms by nations that achieve vastly superior outcomes. The Union Budget 2024-25 allocated ₹73,498 crore to the Department of School Education and Literacy a record figure in absolute terms. But record allocations delivered through a governance infrastructure characterised by absenteeism, corruption, administrative inefficiency, and political interference will not produce record outcomes. They will produce, as they have consistently produced, record expenditure with unremarkable results.

The following reforms, individually modest but collectively transformative, are presented as an evidence-based legislative and administrative agenda:

1. Full Implementation of RTE Section 12(1)(c): The Central Government and State Governments must enforce the 25 per cent EWS reservation mandate in private schools through independent monitoring, financial reimbursement mechanisms that eliminate the school's incentive for non-compliance, and judicial enforcement of existing orders.

2. Restructuring of the NTA and Examination Security: The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 202,4 must be operationally supported by end-to-end encryption of question paper logistics, mandatory use of independent forensic audit firms for each national examination cycle, and the abolition of paper-based examinations for large-scale national tests wherever technological infrastructure permits.

3. Teacher Accountability Framework: A National Teacher Performance and Accountability Commission should be constituted by statute to establish mandatory minimum qualification standards, a biometric attendance system linked to salary disbursement, and a prohibition on the deployment of school teachers for non-educational governmental functions during school hours.

4. Education Expenditure Transparency: Every State and Union Territory must be mandated to publish annual district-level Education Outcome Reports, audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, disclosing vacancy rates, teacher attendance, learning outcome metrics, and per-pupil expenditure data.

5. Minimum Legislative Competency Standards: Without prejudice to the constitutional right of every citizen to contest elections, the Election Commission of India should be empowered, subject to appropriate constitutional amendment, to require all candidates for Parliament and State Legislatures to disclose detailed educational credentials, which shall be independently verified. Declaratory requirements, combined with mandatory public disclosure and penal consequences for false declaration, would, at a minimum, introduce a threshold of accountability.

6. Budget Reallocation Toward Quality: Increased budgetary allocations must be accompanied by a structural shift from input-based to outcome-based funding, tying the release of funds to demonstrable improvements in foundational literacy, numeracy, and teacher attendance, as measured by independent third-party assessments.

Article 45 of the Constitution of India, as originally enacted, directed the state to endeavour to provide free and compulsory education for all children until the age of fourteen within ten years of the commencement of the Constitution. That deadline was 1960. More than six decades later, the state is still endeavouring. A republic that cannot reliably educate its children is a republic that has failed at its most basic sovereign obligation. A parliament that disrupts its own sessions, that debates spectacle over substance, that tolerates paper leaks with impunity, that permits over a million teaching vacancies to go unfilled, is a parliament that has structurally abdicated its constitutional responsibility. India's demographic dividend, celebrated in economic projections as a source of future labour force advantage, will become a demographic disaster if the population entering the workforce is functionally illiterate, technically unqualified, and educationally deprived. The window to avert this outcome is not infinite. It is, by most credible estimates, a decade. The fourth-largest economy in the world can afford to educate its children. What it has lacked, thus far, is not resources but resolve, not budget, but governance, not aspiration, but accountability. The examination systems are broken, the government schools are crumbling, the teachers are sometimes absent, and the legislators responsible for fixing these failures are frequently unequipped to understand them. This is the education emergency that no budget speech has declared. It is time that it was.

Data Sources: Association for Democratic Reforms (2024); ASER Report 2024; World Bank; OECD Education at a Glance 2025; Ministry of Education, Government of India; Supreme Court of India proceedings in NEET-UG 2024 matter; Central Bureau of Investigation records; Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024; UN Human Development Report; The Quint investigative research; ScienceDirect (British Journal of Political Science, 2025)

The views expressed in this analysis are based on publicly available data, judicial records, and peer-reviewed research.

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