Sector
Student Health, Nutrition & Wellbeing
The physical and mental health of school and college students, including nutritional surveillance and examination-related distress.
2 problems within this
Student suicides are rising and are the fifth-largest occupational category in national suicide statistics
The National Crime Records Bureau recorded 14,488 student suicides in 2024 — 8.5% of all suicides nationally, 4.3% above the previous year, continuing a rise documented over a decade. Students are the fifth-largest occupational category among suicide victims. NCRB has separately attributed thousands of deaths specifically to examination failure. This is among the best-evidenced problems in the domain: official government crime statistics, corroborated in the peer-reviewed psychiatric literature, with an active state legislative response. Evidence confidence: High.
1 sub-problem
School-age children are largely absent from national nutritional surveillance
India's flagship nutrition survey, NFHS, measures children under five. Adolescent surveys pick up again later. School-age children between roughly five and eighteen — the population the school system actually serves and feeds — fall between the two, and peer-reviewed research has identified this explicitly as a data gap it was designed to fill. National nutrition policy is therefore informed disproportionately by under-five data. Evidence confidence: Medium-High — the gap is stated explicitly as the rationale of a peer-reviewed study; the specific district findings of that study should not be generalised nationally.
1 sub-problem
Alongside this
Vocational Education & Skilling
The skilling system under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, the ITI network, and the transition from education into work. Carries the strongest audit evidence in the domain.
Higher Education — Access & Affordability
Who reaches higher education at all, measured chiefly through the Gross Enrolment Ratio in AISHE.
Higher Education — Quality, Faculty & Research
Faculty establishment, regulatory oversight and research capacity in universities and premier central institutions.
Education Governance & Regulation
Regulatory oversight of schooling, including the state's relationship with private schools, and the reliability of the data systems used to govern the sector.
Education Finance
Public spending on education by the Union and the states, and the gap between what is allocated and what is spent.
Centre-State & Federal Governance of Education
Education sits on the Concurrent List. This sector covers the constitutional and fiscal relationship between the Union and the states in governing it.
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