By Rajiv Shah
The other day, I received a message from education rights activist Mitra Ranjan, who claims that a whopping one lakh schools across India have been closed down or merged. This seemed unbelievable at first sight. The message from the activist, who is from the advocacy group Right to Education (RTE) Forum, states that this is happening as part of the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, which floated the idea of school integration/consolidation.
Ranjan, who has been sending me controversial information pertaining to RTE, insists in his Hindi message, "Very cleverly, the policy misinterprets the concept of neighborhood schools mentioned in the Kothari Commission (1964-66) and presents school mergers as a recommendation of the Commission."
Considered a landmark initiative in post-independence India, the commission was chaired by Dr. Daulat Singh Kothari, then-chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC), advising the Government of India on a new structure of school education and beyond (10+2+3); a common school system of neighborhood schools without discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, religion, or economic status to ensure equality and social justice in education; and vocationalization of education to reduce dropout.
Debunking the "misrepresentation," Ranjan says, "Everyone knows that nearly 60 years ago, the Kothari Commission, in the context of connecting every child to formal education, proposed the idea of a common school system," something which has been sidelined ever since, but omitted completely in the NEP 2020. He regrets, "Even the Right to Education Act, 2009 mentions it only in passing, and that too in a purely historical context."
Ranjan, whom I met once at a minority rights meet in Ahmedabad in 2023, asserts, "In fact, even before 2020, while this policy was being formulated and debated, the NITI Aayog entered into an agreement with the Boston Consulting Group and the Piramal Foundation to launch a project in 2017 called Project SATH-E (Sustainable Action for Transforming Human Capital – Education). Jharkhand, Odisha, and Madhya Pradesh were selected as model states, and the project was implemented as a pilot there."
He adds, "The report recommended rapid implementation of this model across other states and at the national level, stating that if carried out in a well-planned and thoughtful manner, the policy would bring sweeping changes to the Indian education system."
Ranjan believes, "However, the real intent behind arbitrarily replacing the existing 10+2+3 structure with an irrational 5+3+3+4 system and systematically merging schools appears to be the creation of chaos within the education system and the further destabilization of an already struggling framework."
Calling this "a deliberately crafted policy, designed in the interest of corporates, elites, private entities, and the market" which works against "the wellbeing of the vast majority of this country," he controversially dubs NEP 2020 "a direct assault on the public's right to knowledge and education, and a fascist attempt to control the minds and attitudes of the people."
In fact, Ranjan says NEP 2020 "is a calculated conspiracy to push tribal, Dalit, minority, disabled, and girl children—as well as all other marginalized, deprived, and poor children—out of the formal education system. It is a political and cultural attack on the idea of education for all and equal education."
Following the NEP, quoting what he calls "some reports (even based on government data)," Ranjan says, "Nearly 100,000 schools have been closed in the past few years (though the actual number is likely much higher). The race to improve quality through school merger policies is sweeping the country, with thousands of cases emerging in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and many other states."
He warns, "The ultimate result has been school closures and a massive number of unidentified student dropouts (or push-outs)," underlining, "The only way forward is to completely reject this policy through public-centered mobilization and widespread public pressure in the interest of millions of children in India" by starting a "Shiksha Bachao Jan Abhiyan (Save Education People's Campaign)."
Publicly available data from different sources shows the following results:
In 2020-21 under the COVID-19 impact, according to Government of India data, the number of schools dropped from 1.509 million in 2020–21 to 1.489 million in 2021–22, marking a net closure of over 20,000 schools.
Between 2019–20 and 2021–22, 10,184 government schools were shut as part of rationalization policies, with states like Madhya Pradesh, Assam, and Odisha contributing most to the closures.
As reported in 2018–19, as many as 60,371 government schools closed over three years, with Uttar Pradesh (26,118) and Madhya Pradesh (29,361) most affected.
As for states where the SATH-E pilot project was undertaken, Madhya Pradesh merged 35,000 schools into 16,000 schools; and Jharkhand merged 4,380 small schools in 2016–18.
As for other states, in Himachal Pradesh, in the past 2½ years, 1,200 schools were shut or merged: 450 had zero enrollment and 750 were merged due to low attendance; and in Gujarat, since 2020, 90 government primary schools were closed and 497 merged, with 28 closures due to zero enrollment and over 130 schools having just 1-10 students.
Uttar Pradesh took the lead, with about 27,000 schools targeted for merging due to low attendance. The closure of a primary school in Lucknow district forced kids to walk 2.5 km—including crossing busy roads and forests—sparking the AAP’s School Bachao Abhiyan. In Noida and Ghaziabad, 132 schools have been merged (72 in Noida, 60 in Ghaziabad), triggering protests by over 2,000 teachers who cited rising dropouts and safety concerns. And in Prayagraj district, the merger of low-enrollment government schools (<50 students) has commenced under state rationalization efforts.
In Chhattisgarh, there have been allegations that a new "teacher rationalization" will lead to 5,000 school closures, with 5,400 schools having a single teacher and almost 300 having none, particularly impacting tribal regions. And in Chamarajanagar city, Karnataka, nearly a dozen primary schools are at risk due to declining enrollment. Parents are shifting to private schools, leaving government ones with fewer than 10 students per school.
Based on these reports, various estimates suggest the overall school count dropped by nearly 70,000 between 2017-18 and 2021-22, with reports indicating that a large number of government schools, nearly 90,000, have closed in the last decade.
Lately, there have been reports of school closures due to religious functions. Thus, as of July 14, 2025, there were localized closures due to Kanwar Yatra and Sawan Somwar in several districts of Uttar Pradesh, including Varanasi and Budaun. In Haryana, schools in Nuh district were closed on July 13 and 14 due to the Jalabhishek Yatra, coinciding with the Kanwar Yatra. These closures are are claimed to be implemented for student safety, traffic management, and to facilitate religious events.
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