NEW DELHI: While India has made notable strides in areas like gender parity, school completion rates, and digital infrastructure, its education system continues to face significant challenges in meeting critical targets related to foundational literacy and numeracy, teacher training, and financing. According to the 2025 UNESCO SDG 4 scorecard, the country remains off-track in upper secondary and tertiary education participation, lags behind global spending standards, and struggles with the training of qualified pre-primary teachers. Despite these setbacks, India has made substantial progress in universalizing primary and lower secondary education, as well as improving internet connectivity in schools.
One of the major areas of concern highlighted in the report is India’s performance in foundational learning. The country is reported to be “off track by 11 percentage points” from the benchmark needed to achieve minimum reading proficiency by the end of primary education. While India’s target for this indicator is 56%, actual achievement is considerably lower. In contrast, high-income countries report reading proficiency levels nearing 99%, while South Asia’s regional average stands at 49%. The report suggests that this gap is likely due to a lack of realistic targets on learning outcomes and limited data availability.
On a more positive note, gender parity in education is one area where India has shown significant improvement. The report places India among the countries that have made “fast progress” in reducing the gender gap in upper secondary completion. By 2025, India’s gender gap in this area is projected to be just 2.3 percentage points, compared to the regional average of 3.4%. “Countries that previously had a disadvantage for girls are now moving towards parity,” the report noted, pointing out India’s alignment with this trend.
However, upper secondary and tertiary participation continue to be significant concerns. India’s target for upper secondary completion by 2025 is 67%, but the projected out-of-school rate for youth aged 15-17 remains high at 21%. In comparison, South Asia’s projected out-of-school rate is 13%, while high-income countries have nearly achieved universal participation with rates below 2%. The report predicts that by 2025, many countries will be “off track by six percentage points” in terms of upper secondary school-age youth.
India’s public expenditure on education remains insufficient, with 3.1% of GDP allocated to education in 2023. This is below the SDG target of 4% and far from the National Education Policy’s aspirational target of 6%. India’s spending is also below the South Asian average of 3.4% and far behind high-income countries, which allocate between 4.8% and 5.5% of GDP to education. The report also notes a worrying trend of “countries moving backwards in terms of public education spending,” with India falling further away from the SDG benchmarks for education funding.
Training pre-primary teachers is another area where India is struggling to meet targets. The 2025 benchmark for trained pre-primary teachers is 88%, but progress has been slow, and data is limited. The report emphasizes that “countries are furthest behind in training pre-primary school teachers,” with a global shortfall of seven percentage points.
On a positive note, India’s primary and lower secondary school completion rates remain strong. The country’s 2025 completion targets for primary (92%) and lower secondary (84%) education place it ahead of the South Asian average of 91% for primary and 88% for lower secondary. However, India still lags behind high-income countries, where completion rates are near universal.
Despite challenges with data and implementation faced by many low- and middle-income nations, India has submitted targets for net connectivity in schools and is making progress through programs aligned with the National Education Policy (NEP). As the 2030 SDG deadline approaches, the report urges countries to accelerate efforts to meet education targets.
