India's education faces challenges in SDG-4 targets despite gains in access, gender parity

NEW DELHI: India's education system continues to struggle with critical gaps in foundational literacy and numeracy, teacher training and financing, even as it shows consistent gains in gender parity, school completion rates and digital infrastructure. As per the 2025 Unesco SDG 4 scorecard , the country remains off-track in upper secondary and tertiary participation, lags behind global spending benchmarks, and has significant shortfalls in training qualified pre-primary teachers, though it has nearly universalised primary and lower secondary education and is improving internet connectivity in schools.

India's performance on foundational learning is a key area of concern, with the report saying that countries, including India, are "off track by 11 percentage points" from the benchmark for achieving minimum reading proficiency by the end of primary education. India's benchmark for this indicator is 56%, but the actual achievement is substantially lower.

In contrast, high-income countries reported reading proficiency levels nearing 99%, while South Asia's regional average stood at 49%. "The large gap...is likely result of limited experience in setting realistic targets on learning outcomes, which reflects low data availability," it said.

Gender parity is one area where India has made notable progress. The report classifies India among countries that have shown "fast progress" in narrowing the gender gap in upper secondary completion. India's 2025 benchmark reflects a gap of 2.3 percentage points, compared to a regional average of 3.4. "Countries which started with a disadvantage at the expense of girls are moving towards parity," the report said, adding that India is aligned with this trend.

Upper secondary and tertiary participation remains a serious concern. India's 2025 benchmark for upper secondary completion is 67%, but the projected out-of-school rate for youth in the 15-17 age group is still 21%. South Asia performs slightly better with a projected 13% out-of-school rate, while high-income countries have nearly achieved universal participation with rates under 2%. The report observed that "already by 2025, it is projected that countries were off track by...six percentage points for upper secondary school age youth".


India's public expenditure on education was 3.1% of GDP in 2023, below the SDG benchmark of 4% and far from the National Education Policy's aspirational target of 6%. This places India below the South Asian average of 3.4% and significantly behind high-income countries, which spend between 4.8% and 5.5% of GDP. The scorecard showed, "Countries are moving backwards in terms of public education spending, which was further away from the twin thresholds of 4% of GDP and 15% of total public expenditure in 2023 than in 2015."

India has also not met its target for trained pre-primary teachers. The 2025 benchmark is set at 88%, but progress is slow and data limited. The report said, "Countries are furthest behind from their 2025 national targets in training pre-primary school teachers", with a global shortfall of seven percentage points.

However, India's primary and lower secondary completion rates remain strong. The 2025 benchmarks for completion are 92% and 84%, respectively, placing India above the South Asia average of 91% for primary and 88% for lower secondary, though trailing high-income countries where completion is near-universal.

While many low- and lower-middle-income countries struggle with data and implementation, India has submitted benchmarks for net connectivity in schools and is moving forward through programmes aligned with NEP. As 2030 SDG deadline approaches, the report urged countries to accelerate action.