School enrolment in India has fallen for the third consecutive year, showed data released by the Union education ministry on Thursday.

The latest Unified District Information System for Education Plus data, which tracks school education parameters from the pre-primary to the higher secondary levels, showed a drop of 11 lakh students in enrolment in 2023-’24.

Total enrolment was 24.6 crore in 2024-’25, a drop from 24.8 crore in 2023-’24 and 25.1 crore in 2022-’23.

The ministry data shows that the trend is in line with another report published in January.

The 2024 Annual Status of Education Report had shown in January that enrolment in government schools, which had surged during the Covid-19 pandemic, has now declined to pre-pandemic levels.

The government data released on Thursday also indicated that the fall in enrolment was mainly in government and government-aided schools, while enrolment in private schools have seen a rise.

In government and government-aided schools, enrolment fell to 12.1 crore in 2024-’25 from 13.6 crore in 2022-’23.

During the same period, private schools saw steady growth in enrolment, rising to 9.5 crore from 8.4 crore.

Private schools’ share of total enrolment has reached 39% in 2024-’25, which is the highest since 2018-’19.

The number of government schools have also fallen marginally to 10.13 lakh in 2024-’25 from 10.18 lakh in 2023-’24. In the same period, the number of private schools grew to 3.79 lakh from 3.31 lakh.

The largest drop in enrolment was among children between the age of three and eleven. In this category, enrolment fell by about 25 lakh in 2024-’25 compared to the previous year.

Their numbers dropped to 11.8 crore from 12 crore, mainly in Class 1 to Class 5.

Enrolment at other levels such as pre-primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary have shown small increases.

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