77 Percent of Youth Do Not Attend College<\/p>\n
Students Are Dropping Out of School<\/p>\n
Ahmedabad, May 22, 2026<\/p>\n
The dire state of education in Gujarat is starkly revealed by official statistics for the 2025-26 academic year.<\/p>\n
**Schools Shut Down \u2013 Teacher Count Declines**<\/p>\n
Amidst a shortage of teachers, the number of schools operating without any students is on the rise. A report by NITI Aayog\u2014the policy think tank established by India’s Narendra Modi government\u2014released in May 2026, states that 2,936 schools are being run by a single teacher each. In these schools, a solitary teacher is responsible for teaching all subjects across grades 1 through 8. Furthermore, 63 schools have not a single enrolled student, yet salaries continue to be paid to 78 teachers assigned to them.<\/p>\n
Additionally, 11,000 primary schools are being managed by just two teachers each.<\/p>\n
According to the Socio-Economic Assessment for 2025-26, the number of primary schools declined by 320 during the 2024-25 academic year\u2014dropping from 44,288 to 43,968. This reduction coincided with a decrease of 87,000 students and a loss of 4,207 teachers; out of an initial workforce of 328,665 teachers, only 325,000 remain. The Congress party claims that a total of 5,612 schools have been shut down. Over the past decade, 8 percent of government schools have closed, while the number of private schools has increased by 15 percent. Primary schools currently face a shortage of 42,000 classrooms.<\/p>\n
**Expenditure Rises, Educational Outcomes Decline**<\/p>\n
Despite the closure of schools, educational expenditure has actually increased. However, these funds have yielded no tangible results; despite an outlay of \u20b92,199 crore, 240,000 children have dropped out of school. Furthermore, despite a budgetary allocation of \u20b963,184 crore, 70,000 teaching positions remain vacant.<\/p>\n
**Infrastructure: Electricity, Computers, and Internet\u2014Highest in the Nation**<\/p>\n
Ironically, in terms of infrastructure\u2014specifically access to electricity, computers, and the internet\u2014Gujarat ranks highest in the country.<\/p>\n
**Illiterate Children: 240,000 Children Do Not Attend School**<\/p>\n
A staggering 240,000 children do not attend school. In the 2025-26 academic year, Gujarat recorded the highest increase in the number of out-of-school children compared to any other state in the country. There has been a 341% increase in the number of children not attending school over the past year. In 2024, the number of illiterate children not attending school stood at 54,541; this figure surged to 2.4 lakh in 2025. Meanwhile, the whereabouts of 6.4 lakh children remain unknown, as they have not been tracked.<\/p>\n
**School Dropouts**
\n1.1 lakh girls have dropped out of school. Approximately 2.3 lakh\u2014or 27.6%\u2014of children drop out of school before reaching Standard 10.
\nOut of every 100 children, only 62 manage to reach Standard 12. The Union Education Secretary stated this fact in May 2026.
\nThe secondary-level dropout rate stands at 16.9%, which is significantly higher than the national average of 11.5%.<\/p>\n
**Decline in GER:**
\nIn primary education, the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) was 93.1% in 2021-22; this figure dropped to 79.6% in 2024-25. This represents the most significant decline in education witnessed across the country, occurring in Gujarat.<\/p>\n
**Quality of Learning**
\nThe GER for primary students is merely 72.5%, which is the lowest in the country.
\nThe GER for higher secondary education is 47.3%, falling below the national average of 58.4%.
\nPTR (Pupil-Teacher Ratio): Secondary level stands at 27:1, and Higher Secondary at 25:1\u2014both figures are higher than the national average.
\nThe situation is most dire in the Bharuch district, where 25.41% of students are unable to solve mathematical problems related to daily life.<\/p>\n
*These statistics are derived from the NITI Aayog report of May 2026, data presented in the Lok Sabha, and the Gujarat Socio-Economic Survey Report 2025-26.*<\/p>\n
**Admissions**
\nLast year (2024-25), approximately 10 to 12 lakh children were enrolled in primary education across Gujarat. Gujarat Board
\n7.50 lakh students appeared for the Class 10 examinations. The total enrollment in Class 10 stood at 16.5 lakh students.<\/p>\n
College Admissions
\nGujarat’s Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in Higher Education for 2021 was 22.7%. The national average for 2025 is 32.5%.<\/p>\n
This implies that out of every 100 young people in the 18\u201323 age group, only 23 actually attend college.<\/p>\n
Not Attending College
\nIn the 2025\u201326 academic year, there were 3 to 4 lakh students enrolled in colleges. Of these, 3 lakh students successfully obtained their degrees.<\/p>\n
This directly indicates that 12 lakh students are unable to complete their college education.
\nGujarat ranks 10th in the country.
\nUttar Pradesh: 70.68 Lakh
\nMaharashtra: 50.22 Lakh
\nTamil Nadu: 39.53 Lakh
\nGujarat: 20.93 Lakh*<\/p>\n
There are 3,13,906 students enrolled in government colleges and 9,60,615 students in private colleges. (Google translation from Gujarati; please refer to the original report.)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
77 Percent of Youth Do Not Attend College Students Are Dropping Out of School Ahmedabad, May 22, 2026 The dire state of education in Gujarat is starkly revealed by official statistics for the 2025-26 academic year. **Schools Shut Down \u2013 Teacher Count Declines** Amidst a shortage of teachers, the number of schools operating without any […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[3,4763,54,4777],"tags":[187,6319,140,14858,14857,14856,13637],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/allgujaratnews.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/cm-modi.jpeg?fit=1280%2C855&ssl=1","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paUKPQ-e2R","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53993"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53994,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53993\/revisions\/53994"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}