India’s efforts to reduce school dropout rates are yielding results. Fewer children are leaving school before completing their education, teacher numbers have reached a record high and schools continue to expand access to basic infrastructure. Yet, the latest Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2025–26 report suggests that while India has made significant progress in bringing children into classrooms, ensuring they stay until the end of school remains a major challenge.

The report, released by the Ministry of Education, covers 14.66 lakh schools, 24.72 crore students and 1.03 crore teachers across the country, offering one of the most comprehensive assessments of India’s school education system.

School Dropout Rates Continue to Fall

The UDISE+ data show a sustained decline in school dropout rates across all stages of education.

At the primary level, the national school dropout rate has fallen to 0.3%, indicating that almost all children who enter primary school continue through the elementary years. The dropout rate stands at 3.6% at the upper primary stage and 9.5% at the secondary stage.

Student progression between school stages has also improved. Nearly 93.8% of students now transition from primary to upper primary education, while 88.3% move from upper primary to secondary school. The transition rate from secondary to higher secondary stands at 78.1%, reflecting gradual improvements in keeping students within the education system.

The figures suggest that programs aimed at improving school access and reducing early school dropouts have helped strengthen enrolment and continuity during the foundational years of education.

The Challenge Shifts to Higher Secondary

Despite these gains, the report reveals that retaining students through higher secondary education remains a significant concern.

National retention rates decline steadily as students move to higher grades. While 91.1% of students remain in school through the primary stage and 83.7% continue through elementary education, retention falls to 69.8% at the secondary stage. By higher secondary, only 51.9% of students remain in the school system.

The data point to an important shift in India’s education landscape. Over the past two decades, policy efforts have largely succeeded in expanding access to schooling. The challenge now is ensuring that students complete their education, particularly during adolescence when the risk of leaving school increases.

The report does not examine why students discontinue their education after secondary school. However, education experts have previously identified factors such as economic pressures, migration, early entry into the workforce, gender-related barriers in some regions and limited access to higher secondary schools as contributing to student attrition.

Teachers and Infrastructure Improve

Teacher availability has also improved across the country.

India now has 1.03 crore teachers, marking an 8.3% increase since 2022–23. Women account for 54.9% of the teaching workforce, while girls represent 48.4% of total student enrolment.

Basic infrastructure has continued to expand. According to the report, 99.5% of schools now have drinking water facilities, 95% have electricity and 99.1% have toilets. Libraries are available in 90.5% of schools, while 69.9% have computers and 67.4% have internet connectivity.

These improvements indicate that access to essential facilities is becoming nearly universal across the country’s school network.

Kerala Highlights Strong School Capacity

Kerala continues to perform strongly on several indicators of school capacity and teacher availability.

The state has 15,750 schools, enrolling about 60.4 lakh students and employing nearly 2.94 lakh teachers. On average, schools in Kerala have 19 teachers, compared with the national average of seven, while average enrolment per school stands at 384 students, more than double the national average of 169.

The state also reports only 67 single-teacher schools, compared with 100,843 across India, reflecting a stronger teacher deployment profile than most states.

Kerala’s Gross Enrolment Ratio remains above the national average across all stages of schooling, indicating sustained participation throughout the school system.

Private Schools Continue to Attract Students

While the UDISE+ report focuses on the status of school education in 2025–26, enrolment trends over recent years indicate a gradual shift towards private unaided schools.

Analyses of successive UDISE+ datasets show that government schools have been losing enrolment, while private schools have gained students. This suggests that even as public schools improve on indicators such as infrastructure, teacher availability and student retention, many families continue to opt for private education.

The report does not attribute reasons for this shift, but it raises important questions about parental preferences, perceived learning quality and the future role of government schools within India’s education system.

The UDISE+ 2025–26 report reflects the changing priorities of India’s school education system. The focus is no longer solely on enrolling children in school. Instead, policymakers now face the challenge of ensuring that students remain in education through higher secondary while also improving the quality of learning.

The declining dropout rates are an important achievement. However, with only about half of students remaining in school until higher secondary, improving completion rates is likely to be the next major test of India’s education policy. At the same time, the continued movement of students towards private schools suggests that expanding access alone may not be enough to strengthen confidence in the public education system.

In a first for a Sanskrit university in India, the Central Sanskrit University has introduced a B. Tech. program in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science from the 2026-27 academic year, marking its entry into engineering education. The program, approved by the All India Council for Technical Education, aims to combine emerging technologies with India’s traditional knowledge systems. The program will be offered in University’s Nashik campus.

Speaking during his Mann Ki Baat address on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the initiative as “a significant effort to prepare the youth for new technology while keeping them rooted in their heritage.”

Designed in line with the National Education Policy 2020, the programme seeks to transform Sanskrit institutions into multidisciplinary centres of learning. It has a sanctioned intake of 66 seats, including 60 regular and six supernumerary seats.

Sanskrit University Bridging AI and Indian knowledge systems

The new programme is expected to support the development of AI-enabled tools for Sanskrit and other Indian languages, strengthen language technologies, enable the digitisation and preservation of classical texts, and promote interdisciplinary research linking artificial intelligence with Indian Knowledge Systems.

“This marks a crucial step towards integrating modern technology with India’s traditional knowledge. It will facilitate the development of new AI tools for Indian languages and accelerate the digitisation and preservation of our ancient texts and manuscripts,” the Prime Minister said.

The programme will also encourage the application of modern computational techniques to traditional disciplines such as Ayurveda, Yoga, Jyotisha, Nyaya and other classical fields.

Curriculum combines technology and language sciences

According to an Education Ministry spokesperson, the technical curriculum includes artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, Python programming, statistics, cloud computing, data analytics and deep learning.

Alongside these, students will study language- and knowledge system-oriented subjects such as natural language processing, computational linguistics, machine translation, speech recognition, conversational AI, language technologies, knowledge representation and optical character recognition (OCR) for ancient manuscripts, equipping them to develop AI solutions for Indian languages and classical texts.

For years, India’s performance in global university rankings followed a familiar pattern. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) dominated the conversation, while the rest of the country’s higher education landscape struggled to attract international attention.

The latest QS World University Rankings 2027 suggest that story is beginning to change.

India now has 52 universities in the rankings, making it the fifth most represented higher education system in the world. A decade ago, only 14 Indian institutions featured in the rankings. The growth is striking, but the more important development is where that progress is coming from.

While IIT Delhi remains India’s highest-ranked institution, climbing to 118th globally and matching the best-ever performance by an Indian university, the broader picture points to a more diverse and geographically distributed higher education ecosystem.

QS World University Rankings 2027 Show India’s Growth Beyond the IITs

The most notable feature of this year’s rankings is the performance of universities outside the IIT system.

Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) recorded one of the biggest jumps among Indian institutions, climbing 94 places. BITS Pilani improved by 93 positions, while Shoolini University entered India’s top ten universities after gaining 51 places. Chandigarh University, Jamia Millia Islamia and Symbiosis International also posted significant improvements.

The numbers tell a larger story. Ten years ago, ranked Indian universities were concentrated in just nine states and union territories. Today, institutions from 19 states and union territories are represented, suggesting that excellence in higher education is spreading beyond a handful of metropolitan centres and elite campuses.

This shift matters because it reflects a broader transformation underway in Indian higher education. As more universities invest in research, industry partnerships and international visibility, the gap between elite institutions and the rest of the sector appears to be narrowing.

QS World University Rankings 2027 Highlight India’s Research Strength

Research impact has emerged as one of India’s strongest areas.

Eleven Indian universities are now among the world’s top 100 institutions for Citations per Faculty, an indicator that measures how often academic research is referenced by scholars around the world. IISc Bengaluru ranked 21st globally on this measure, while IIT Roorkee, IIT Madras, Anna University and Shoolini University also performed strongly.

Perhaps most remarkable was the performance of Bharathiar University, which entered the rankings for the first time and immediately secured a place among the global top 100 for research impact.

India is now the world’s third-largest producer of research output, behind only China and the United States. The challenge ahead is ensuring that this growing body of research translates into innovation, patents, startups and societal impact.

Graduate Employability Emerges as a Bright Spot

Another encouraging signal comes from employability.

The University of Mumbai climbed 70 places to rank 25th globally for Employment Outcomes, highlighting the growing recognition of Indian graduates in the job market. More than one-third of Indian universities improved their Employer Reputation scores, while six Indian institutions now feature among the world’s top 100 for Employer Reputation.

These gains come at a time when employers are increasingly looking for graduates equipped with skills in artificial intelligence, digital technologies and emerging industries.

The results suggest that many Indian universities are becoming more aligned with workforce needs, an area that has often attracted criticism in the past.

Challenges Continue to Hold Back Indian Universities

Despite the progress, significant challenges remain.

Internationalisation continues to be one of India’s weakest areas. Most institutions attract relatively small numbers of international students and faculty members compared to leading global universities. Academic reputation, while improving, still lags behind many established institutions in North America, Europe and East Asia.

Faculty-student ratios remain another concern. As enrolment grows, many universities struggle to recruit enough faculty members to maintain high-quality teaching and research standards.

These challenges highlight an important reality: rankings are improving, but the work of building globally competitive universities is far from complete.

A Higher Education System in Transition

Perhaps the most encouraging message from the QS World University Rankings 2027 is that India’s progress is becoming broader and more inclusive.

Eighteen Indian universities achieved their highest-ever positions this year, while more than half of the country’s ranked institutions improved their standing. Since the introduction of the National Education Policy 2020, 29 Indian institutions have reached record performances.

The rise of Indian higher education is no longer the story of a few elite institutions carrying the country’s reputation. It is increasingly a story of universities across regions, disciplines and ownership models making steady gains.

The IITs may still dominate the headlines, but the latest rankings suggest something larger is underway: the gradual emergence of a more diverse, more competitive and more ambitious higher education system.