‘Take action’ on 22,298 unrecognised schools in UDISE Plus by March: Education ministry to states

NEW DELHI: The secretary of the education ministry’s department of school education and literacy, Sanjay Kumar has written to states asking them to either “authorise” or "take appropriate action” against unrecognised schools by March, 2025. In a letter sent last week, Sanjay Kumar said that there are over 22,000 schools across states and union territories that have lost their recognition but are still listed in the UDISE portal.

According to data shared by the secretary, 24 lakh students are studying in these schools which also employ 1.5 lakh teachers.

The Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE Plus) is a platform to aggregate school information from across states. The latest UDISE Plus data publicly available on the website is from 2021-22. The data for 2022-23 has not been updated yet. However, Kumar’s letter cites UDISE Plus 2023-24 as the source.

UDISE Plus: Jharkhand’s unrecognised schools

According to the UDISE 2023-24 data, shared by the secretary along with the letter, the state with the most unrecognised schools is Jharkhand – where over 8.37 lakh children are affected – followed by Bihar and Assam.

Given below are the numbers of unrecognised schools and the children in them by state.

UDISEPlus: Unrecognised schools by state

More than 1.58 lakh teachers are also employed in these unrecognised schools as per the UDISE 2023-24 data. Jharkhand and Bihar have over 40,000 teachers employed in their unrecognised schools while West Bengal has over 26,000 teachers in such schools.

U DISE portal, RTE Act and unrecognised schools

School education secretary Sanjay Kumar pointed out that many unrecognised schools were added to the UDISE list with the stipulation that they complete and meet standards mandated by the Right to Education Act 2009 within three years of the Act.

The Right to Education (RTE) Act was enacted in 2009 but implemented from 2010. However, more than a decade later, 22,298 schools in the UDISE list are still unrecognised.

“Section 19 of the RTE Act stipulates that those schools established before commencement of the Act and not fulfilling the norms shall take steps to fulfil the norms within three years from the date of commencement of the Act. The Act also mandates that, if such schools fail to fulfil the norms, the recognition shall be withdrawn and the school shall cease to function. In spite of these provisions, a large number of unrecognised schools are continuing in UDISE+ till date,” the secretary wrote in his December 10 letter.

“It is requested that states or union territories need to take further course of action and issue suitable instructions to concerned authorities to recognise these unrecognised schools or take appropriate measures as deemed fit within the definite time line of March 31, 2025,” Kumar’s letter says.