India's upper secondary education not progressing well, needs a boost to meet target, shows UNESCO report
In the report ‘SDG 4 Scorecard Progress Report on National Benchmarks: Focus on Teachers’, it has been seen that the primary education in India is progressing.
India occupies a place of pride among nations and is doing significantly well in the education sector as far as primary education is concerned, however, when it comes to the upper secondary stage, target achievements have been slower, thereby indicating a room for improvement. This has been revealed in a recent report published by UNESCO.
The study, “SDG 4 Scorecard Progress Report on National Benchmarks: Focus on Teachers” classifies countries mainly into the following areas:
- Pre-primary Participation rate
- Out-of-school rate
- Completion rate
- Gender gap in upper secondary
- Minimum learning proficiency
- School internet connectivity
- Trained teachers, pre-primary
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As per the report, among countries in Central and Southern Asia, India is progressing fast in participation rate in pre-primary or early childhood education attendance, scoring 91 percent, only four percent less than its 2025 benchmark of 95 percent.
In fact, the country is progressing considerably well in the completion rate index for the primary section with 94 percent. The benchmark set for 2025 is 99 percent.
However, when it comes to the Upper Secondary section, the completion rate has been slow at 51 percent as compared to the 2025 benchmark of 84 percent, thus indicating a matter of concern. Other countries in the region such as neighbouring Bangladesh and Nepal on the contrary are progressing fast in both primary and upper secondary sections, as seen in the report.
Again, in the Out-of-school rate, India’s progress has been faster among the primary age group but gets slower in the lower secondary and upper secondary sections.
In terms of the minimum learning proficiency, the report suggests an absence of data for India thereby making it difficult to assess the accurate figures. As per the UNESCO report, the lack of data prevents a clear assessment of progress.
So far as School Internet Connectivity is concerned, India is making average progress in primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary categories, indicating room for further improvement.
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Whereas, for trained teachers in the pre-primary section, the country is progressing fast scoring 95 percent, at par with its 2025 benchmark.
Overall, if the report is anything to go by, then India’s primary education sector is relatively better than the lower and upper secondary education sectors.
The UNESCO report has stated that a total of 79% of countries have submitted benchmarks, or national targets, to be achieved by 2025 and 2030 for at least one of eight SDG 4 indicators. It said, “This process, supported by the UIS and the GEM Report, responds to the Education 2030 Framework for Action which had called on countries to establish ‘appropriate intermediate benchmarks ... for addressing the accountability deficit associated with longer-term targets’”.
