Six states have over 74% of India’s minority schools: MHRD

NEW DELHI: There are 39,215 recognised minority schools in India, making just a little over 2.6 percent of the total number of schools. Six states account for over 74 percent minority schools and Uttar Pradesh has the highest number.

Minority schools are institutions run by one of India’s six religious minorities - Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh, Parsi and Jain communities – or linguistic minorities. They are exempt from implementing certain laws including the Right to Education Act 2009.

The data was shared by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, or MHRD, with Parliament on December 11, 2019. It is based on information gathered by the Unified District Information on School Education system, or UDISE Plus, the government’s main school education database, for 2018-19.

The most schools

Uttar Pradesh alone has 8,403 minority schools – the highest number in the country. Maharashtra with 7,544 is next, followed by Tamil Nadu, Meghalaya, Kerala, and Rajasthan. In a separate reply, the MHRD shared data showing that in Kerala, Christian schools outnumber Muslim ones by a wide margin.

The highest percentage

While the six states mentioned above have the largest number of minority schools, the states where minority institutions form a significant percentage of the total number of schools are entirely different.

The following chart shows where minority institutions account for more than 10 percent of the total number of schools.

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