According to the UDISE+ 2021–22 report, which collects data on school enrolment rates, approximately 54 percent of students in India are enrolled in government schools. On the other hand, private schools saw a decline of more than 7 percent in their enrolment rate during 2021–22. This was a reversal of the trend between 2015 and 2020, when private schools saw an exponential growth in their enrolment. Overall, however, the number of school dropouts has steadily decreased over the years.

But are these numbers sufficient indicators of the performance of government and private schools? How are they perceived by parents and society at large? And finally, what do they tell us about India’s education system?

On our podcast On the Contrary by IDR, we spoke with Aditya Natraj and Parth Shah to find the answers to these questions, and to understand the different roles played by government and private schools.

Aditya is the CEO of Piramal Foundation. Before taking on this role, he founded and led Kaivalya Education Foundation, which works entirely with the government school system. Parth Shah is the founder-president of the Centre for Civil Society, an independent public policy think tank. His research and advocacy work focus on the themes of economic freedom, choice and competition in education, and good governance.

Below is an edited transcript that provides an overview of the guests’ perspectives on the show.

Private and Government Schools Shape Ideas of Democracy and Social Justice

Aditya: Schooling is not just a utilitarian goal for the sake of the child. I’d like to zoom out and look at schooling as a larger democracy-building project. We are a very young democracy. Just 76 years ago, we were 550 princely states. We did not have the concept of India. Public education is one of the key tools for building that concept. [Our school diaries] used to have ‘unity in diversity’, which is reinforced [as a value], because I needed to believe and affiliate. I’m from Tamil Nadu; I need to affiliate with a person from Tripura, Jammu and Kashmir, and Jaisalmer, etc., whose food and culture are substantially different from mine. Public education helps in the process of creating that democracy, saying, “What are the common values by which we live? Why have we come together?”

Read the full article about private and government schools in India at India Development Review.