School education quality slips in 9 states, Kerala among them

By: Shantanu Bhattacharji

Many states still treat education as a welfare measure, prioritising mid-day meals and infrastructure over teacher recruitment, training, and performance—undermining its potential as a long-term investment in human capital.

For years, India has proudly claimed that its greatest strength lies in its people—specifically, its youth. While much of the developed world grapples with ageing populations, India has a demographic edge. Or so the narrative goes.  
 
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: youth, on its own, guarantees nothing. Without the right education and skills, that so-called demographic dividend could become a long-term liability. 

The education ministry’s latest Performance Grading Index 2.0 (PGI 2.0) offers a timely reality check. The index, which evaluates state-level performance in school education across six dimensions—including learning outcomes, infrastructure, equity, governance, and teacher training—has revealed that nine states and three union territories witnessed a decline in education quality in 2023–24. 

Among them is Kerala, long viewed as a benchmark for educational achievement in India. Its presence on the list of underperformers is especially telling. This isn’t a case of weaker states falling further behind. The problem appears more structural and widespread. 

Predictably, some of the slippage is being attributed to post-pandemic learning loss. Students were kept out of classrooms for extended periods, and the transition to online learning—never uniformly available—left many behind. But this explanation, while convenient, misses the larger point. The warning signs in India’s school education system were visible before Covid. The pandemic merely amplified them. 

The truth is, access to schooling has improved, and enrolment numbers are up. Gender parity, too, has seen measurable gains. But the quality of learning remains highly variable—and often poor. Numerous surveys, including ASER, have repeatedly shown that a significant proportion of students in rural and government schools struggle with basic literacy and numeracy. 

The PGI 2.0 does not cover higher education, but the implications are similar. Without a solid foundation at the school level, the entire education pipeline suffers. In the absence of skilled graduates, industry faces a talent mismatch, and economic productivity suffers. 

There’s also a governance issue at play. Many states continue to treat education as a welfare obligation rather than a long-term investment in human capital. Budgets are often skewed toward mid-day meals and infrastructure targets, while teacher recruitment, training, and performance monitoring are neglected. 

This is where the talk of the demographic dividend starts to look less convincing. A large working-age population is not inherently an advantage. If it lacks employable skills, the result is not growth, but underemployment, frustration, and rising inequality. The dividend becomes a drag. 

India’s growth strategy has emphasised infrastructure, manufacturing, and digital transformation. These are important, but they must be matched by commensurate investment in human capital. If the base—school education—is weak, the rest of the superstructure cannot hold. 

Among the nine states where school education scores declined, Kerala and Mizoram stand out for their high literacy rates—both above 95 per cent, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2023–24. At the other end of the spectrum, states with literacy rates below 80 per cent—such as Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Bihar—also registered declines. The steepest drops were recorded in Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Karnataka, and Bihar, indicating that the deterioration in educational quality spans both high- and low-literacy states, and is not limited to the usual underperformers. 

The main reason for declining scores in the nine states was poor performance in the governance processes (GP) domain, which measures compliance with the Right to Education Act and the use of digital tools like online attendance. Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Mizoram saw sharp drops of 36.5, 27.3, and 25.4 points, respectively. Other states faltered in different areas: Tamil Nadu and West Bengal in access and teacher education; Karnataka, Bihar, and Chhattisgarh in equity; and Uttarakhand in infrastructure. 

Chandigarh ranked highest in the country with a score of 703, while Punjab, Gujarat, and Odisha were the top-performing states. But all three spent only a small share of their state income on education in 2023–24. This suggests that better results may be coming from focused policies and efficient systems, not just more money—and that improvements are happening in pockets, not across the board.