9,82,662 teachers’ posts are lying vacant in government schools across the country.
18,797 government schools have no access to drinking water.
31,841 government schools do not have a separate toilet for girls.
Only 57.2 percent of government schools have computers, while 53.9 percent have access to the internet.
While announcing the Union Budget 2018-19, then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had proposed “to treat education holistically without segmentation from pre-nursery to Class 12." To achieve this, the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) was launched in May 2018 by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (now Ministry of Education).
It subsumed three erstwhile schemes — Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan and Teacher Education — with the primary goal to enable the implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 in state schools.
However, a report presented in Rajya Sabha on 26 March indicates that nearly seven years after its launch, the scheme is riddled with major gaps, including in the utilisation of funds.
“In far too many schools, the pupil-teacher ratio, the number of classrooms, or the availability of water and sanitation facilities and/or playgrounds is inadequate,” noted the report, which was prepared by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports on the Demand of Grants 2025-26 given by the Department of School Education and Literacy (DSEL).
In the first story for The Quint's State of Education series, we look at how the underperformance of the SSA scheme is denying lakhs of children their right to education:
Nearly Half of the Allocated Funds Not Utilised
In the Union Budget 2025-26, the budget allocation for the school education department was increased from Rs 73,008 crore in FY 25 to Rs 78,572 crore in FY 26 — a hike of 7.6 percent. In absolute numbers, this growth of Rs 5,564 crore was largely on account of more allocation for SSA.
However, the actual utilisation of funds as of 18 February 2025 remains Rs 20,941 crore—which is 55.8 percent of the Budget Estimate for FY25.
Experts attributed this under-utilisation of funds to the delay in the disbursal of funds, from the Centre to states and then from the state to districts.
“A flexible system of providing rolling funding to states for three years can be adopted for better utilisation, wherein the money can be with the state for at least three years for innovation and infrastructure building,” Dr Jayshree Oza told The Quint. Oza is a Senior Advisor at Central Square Foundation, an NGO that works for foundational literacy.
Further, three states—West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu—have not received SSA funds from the Centre as they did not opt for the PM SHRI scheme. Despite having above average enrolment, Rs 1,000 crore to West Bengal, Rs 860 crore to Kerala, and Rs 2,152 crore to Tamil Nadu have been withheld and is impacting teachers’ salaries and transportation for students in remote areas.
No Data on School Mergers and Closures
Over the last four years, the total number of schools has declined by over 14,000 across the country, even as the population continues to grow.
“The reason for this is closure or merger of small schools,” said Mitra Ranjan, Coordinator, National Secretariat at RTE Forum, a group of organisations working for the implementation of the RTE Act.
“The New Education Policy had recommended integrating small, stand-alone schools into a school complex or cluster. While its purpose was to group smaller schools within a 5-10 km radius into a single administrative framework for ease of governance and resource sharing, it has led to the closure of a lot of small schools,” Ranjan told The Quint.
He added that this particularly affects students living in tribal areas or remote villages or where commuting is difficult for children.
The committee too sought data on the number of schools shut and the impact of school closures on students and teachers.
Are Schools Equipped with Basic Amenities?
According to the report, 55.9 percent—or a little over half—the total number of government schools have access to tapped drinking water. At the same time, over 36 percent government schools provide drinking water through hand pumps while 1.71 percent or 18,797 schools do not have any drinking water facility.
The committee noted that in many areas, “very high-level contamination of arsenic, fluoride, mercury and other heavy metals in the ground water,” makes it unsafe for drinking. It added that drinking untreated water from unprotected sources severely affects children’s health and sought the the Jal Shakti Ministry’s intervention to provide clean drinking water to all government schools at the earliest.
Meanwhile, data on the percentage of government schools that have separate toilets for girls showed a welcome trend.
However, the report points out that around 3.6 percent primary, 2.2 percent upper primary, 2.3 percent secondary, 2.2 percent higher secondary and overall, 2.9 percent government schools still lack girls' toilets.
Although the proportion might seem insignificant, it accounts for over 31,800 schools which till date do not have separate toilets for girls. And this is seen as one of the primary reasons for girl students to drop out of schools.
Data Mismatch:
The committee pointed out that data collected by independent organisations indicate the aforementioned figures to be lower than official data reports (collected from Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+)).
It cited the Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER) 2024 report released by Pratham, an NGO that works on improving quality of education in India.
What About Modern Amenities?
Data shows that the number of government schools which now have access to computers and the internet has seen growth over the last few years. However, the reality remains that over 42 percent of government schools still don’t have access to computers in the digital age.
“Access to hardware components such as computers and the internet is one thing. Many schools have computer labs but often don’t have electricity. However, if we look at the software component, there are very few educational modules for children—fewer in vernacular languages. Besides, many teachers don’t know how to use a computer for teaching,” said Dr Geeta Menon, an educationist who works on girls’ literacy.
This digital divide not only exacerbates learning gaps among students, especially from disadvantaged sections, but it also affects their employability. The International Labour Organisation (ILO), in a report released March last year, had attributed the doubling of unemployment among educated India’s youth to huge gaps in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills.
Data shows that not only are stipends for Children With Special Needs (CWSN) declining, the number of special educators who teach them receiving funds has also reduced over the years.
Menon added that a nuanced response to children with special needs is still missing from schools and the government.
Lakhs of Teachers' Posts Lying Vacant
Over 9.82 lakh teaching posts are currently lying vacant even as teachers are continuously being hired on a contractual basis. This has two problems—
Contractual appointment of teachers undermines reservations and in-turn representation of teachers belonging to SC, ST, OBC, EWS, PwD communities; and
Teachers hired on contract do not have the same service conditions with regard to their pay, in-service teacher training, transfers and other benefits; thereby creating a system of equal work, unequal pay.
The committee urged that funds allocated to SSA should be utilised in hiring regular teachers or regularisation of contractual teachers.
Decline in Enrolment of Girls, SC/ST/OBC Students
The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), which is defined as the number of students enrolled as a percentage of the total population in that age group, has fallen over the year.
While Oza credited this to removal of duplicate enrolment as a result of Aadhar linking, the committee underlined:
"The decline in enrolment of SC, ST, and OBC students versus 2022-2023 was 3.35% compared to overall decline in enrolment of 1.49%. In absolute terms, the number of SC students declined by 16.23 lakh, ST students by 5.14 lakh, and OBC students by 38.53 lakh. Enrolment of girl students also fell by 29.61 lakhs, a decrease of 2.55%.”
Although the percentage of girls enrolled in government schools has seen a miniscule increase, the Parliamentary Standing Committee attributed it to a rather patriarchal trend. It said that “due to financial constraints, parents are preferring government schools for their girl child as they are economical and private schools for their boys due to their quality education.”
NEP's Vision to Achieve 100% Enrolment in Secondary Education 'Grossly Insufficient'
The dropout rates are still higher than pre-pandemic years and particularly high at the secondary level of education.
“While 100% enrolment has been achieved at the primary level, it has not percolated to secondary education,” Menon said. She listed the reasons for high dropout rates:
Access to quality education gets constrained as more expertise is required for higher classes
Teacher deployment is low, and the number of female teachers is still less
Poverty and economic constraints pushing children to work at 14 years
Migration, which often affects boys more than girls
Availability of transport to commute to school
Nutrition and availability of mid-day meals
Reasons for high dropouts among girls include access to functional toilets, early marriage, engaging in household work, as well as safety issues such as teasing, harassment, stalking, etc. which negatively impacts girls’ participation.
The committee noted that NEP’s vision to achieve 100% GER for secondary education by 2030 is “grossly insufficient” in the absence of a policy and monitoring mechanism to keep students at school. It also highlighted the lopsided allocation of funds to primary (Rs 35,000 crore) vs secondary (Rs 6,250 crore).
Both Menon and Ranjan pressed for the need to extend the Right to Education to children until the age of 18 years and make provisions to keep children in school.
Appeal from The Quint
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In the State of Education series, The Quint uncovers how funds meant to improve the education infrastructure remain stuck on paper. And how this is denying lakhs of students their right to affordable, quality education.
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