- The number of government schools with under 10 students rose to 65,000 in 2024-25
- Teachers in low-enrolment schools increased from 1.26 lakh to 1.44 lakh between 2022-25
- Total government schools declined from 10.32 lakh in 2019-20 to 10.13 lakh in 2024-25
The number of government schools in the country with less than 10 or zero student enrolments has increased from 52,300 in 2022-23 to 65,000 in 2024-25. The teachers posted in these schools increased from 1.26 lakh to 1.44 lakh. The Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) plus data was shared by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in the parliament on December 1, 2025.
The dataset revealed that the country had 10.32 lakh government schools in 2019-20, which fell to 10.13 lakh in 2024-25.
Further, the number of teachers employed at these schools rose from 1.26 lakh in 2022-23 to 1.44 lakh in 2024-25.
The states with the highest number of low-enrolment schools in 2024-25 were West Bengal with 6,703 enrollments, Uttar Pradesh with 6,561 and Maharashtra with 6,552. These states also had the largest number of teachers posted in such schools. West Bengal deployed 27,348 teachers, Uttar Pradesh 22,166 whereas Maharashtra posted 11,056 teachers.
The data also showed that India recorded a decline of 4,688 government schools, from over 1.016 million in 2022–23 to 1.013 million in 2024–25. Himachal Pradesh witnessed the sharpest drop of 722 which reduced its schools from 15,447 to 14,725. Karnataka followed second with a decline of 676. The government schools here dropped from 49,520 to 48,844. Odisha reported the third-largest reduction, decreasing from 48,767 to 48,625.
