Education Crisis in Vidarbha: Falling Scores, Fewer Teachers, and Shrinking Classrooms

There is a shift underway in Vidarbha that is visible but rarely acknowledged. School buildings remain standing, classrooms are filled, and examinations take place each year.

Yet behind these familiar signs is a decline that has gone largely unaddressed. Over the past three years, the region’s education system has experienced a measurable drop in learning quality, student retention, infrastructure support, and institutional capacity.

The data is consistent, the trend is broad, and the impact is long-lasting.

Learning Gaps and Falling Scores

The decline in educational outcomes across Vidarbha is reflected in the region’s performance in both national assessments and state-level examinations.

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022 presented a concerning picture for Maharashtra.

Only 18.5% of Class 3 students in government schools could solve a basic subtraction problem. In 2018, this figure was 28.1%. Reading ability also worsened, with only 26.6% of students in Class 3 able to read a Class 2-level text, down from 44.2% four years earlier.

These numbers reveal a pattern of learning regression that is not confined to isolated areas but spans both urban and rural zones, especially in districts like Gadchiroli, Buldhana, and Washim.

The National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2021 further confirmed the shortfalls in higher classes. Among Class 10 students across Maharashtra, 77% fell below the basic performance level in science. Mathematics showed similarly poor outcomes.

These findings are not abstract. In Vidarbha, board examination results from the Nagpur and Amravati divisions mirror the broader slump. In the 2022 SSC (Class 10) exam, the Nagpur division reported a pass percentage of 97%. By 2023, it had fallen to 92.05%, the lowest in the state.

The HSC (Class 12) pass rate in the same division dropped from 96.52% to 90.35% during the same period. Amravati saw a fall to 92.75% in 2023. The decline is measurable and consistent across levels.

The drop in performance is not limited to student outcomes. Basic learning environments have also deteriorated. ASER found that only about a third of schools in Maharashtra had access to a computer.

Even among those that did, many lacked functional digital classrooms or reliable electricity. These problems were more prominent in Vidarbha’s tribal and rural districts, where government schools have struggled to meet infrastructure standards.

Shrinking Classrooms, Staff, and Retention

The post-2020 period has brought significant shifts in student enrolment across Vidarbha. In Nagpur’s municipal schools, enrolment figures have dropped to the point that 41 schools were shut down between 2019 and 2024.

Just 14,216 students remained in 124 functioning civic schools in the 2023–24 academic year. A similar trend was noted in rural areas, where families increasingly sought private or aided schools or pulled their children out of school altogether due to economic pressures.

National-level UDISE+ data supports these local trends. In 2022–23, approximately 1.5 crore fewer students were enrolled in grades 1–8 across India compared to the previous year.

While district-level breakdowns are not consistently available, Vidarbha was not exempt. The primary dropout rate jumped from 0.8% in 2020–21 to 7.8% in 2022–23 before improving slightly in the next cycle.

For upper primary, the dropout figure reached 8.1% during the same period. These fluctuations, when viewed alongside the closure of local schools and increasing use of combined-grade teaching methods, present a clear indicator of retention problems.

The teaching workforce in Vidarbha has been severely affected by both shortages and changes in hiring patterns. In Nagpur alone, the number of primary teachers in municipal schools declined from 856 in 2019–20 to just 495 in 2023–24.

Secondary teachers dropped from 273 to 151. Most of the current teaching staff are employed temporarily, with many appointed as “adhoc” educators without subject-specific training. These educators are frequently assigned subjects they are unqualified to teach.

Similar patterns are observed in rural districts, where permanent vacancies are not being filled. At the state level, Maharashtra had over 2,500 vacant elementary-teacher positions in 2022–23.

These staffing shortages are not only logistical challenges. They affect the ability of students to receive consistent instruction and contribute to multi-grade classrooms becoming the norm.

ASER reported that by 2022, 51% of Class 5 students were learning in classrooms with students from other grades. This format limits teachers’ ability to tailor instruction and has a direct impact on learning outcomes.

Resource Deficits and Policy Implementation Gaps

Infrastructure shortfalls continue to define the educational landscape across Vidarbha. While official figures suggest that 96% of schools in Maharashtra have toilets for girls, only about 78% have working electricity.

These percentages fall further in districts such as Gondia, Chandrapur, and Gadchiroli. In remote areas, many schools are still run in single-room facilities or buildings with crumbling walls and no safe water source.

The pandemic exposed the extent of the digital divide. While wealthier urban families were able to arrange mobile phones or laptops for their children, most families in Vidarbha lacked access to devices or reliable internet.

Efforts by the state and central governments to provide digital learning resources through television, tablets, or e-learning portals reached limited audiences. As a result, children lost over a year of learning, and even after schools reopened, they struggled to catch up.

Post-COVID remedial learning programs were introduced as part of the Samagra Shiksha scheme. While well-intentioned, these efforts have been uneven in practice. Generic modules were distributed to all schools, regardless of local needs.

Teachers were expected to handle catch-up instruction in already crowded classrooms, many of which lacked adequate materials. In places where additional instructors were hired, the appointments were often contractual and inconsistent.

Inspections carried out by the Maharashtra Education Department in 2023 found that many government schools did not meet the basic minimum standards in infrastructure or teaching practices.

However, action taken following these inspections has been limited. Budget allocations continue to flow, but execution remains inconsistent.

RTI-based news reports from Nagpur and Amravati show delays in implementing scholarship schemes and slow hiring of teaching staff. The outcomes of policies on paper have not been matched in the classroom.

Shifting Patterns in Access and Performance

Vidarbha has experienced changes in how education is accessed and delivered. There is a clear and growing preference among middle-income families for private education. In Nagpur’s municipal zone, parents have shifted students from public to low-cost English-medium private schools.

While ASER 2022 shows a national uptick in government school enrolment, mostly driven by economic hardship during the pandemic, Vidarbha’s cities reveal a preference for the perceived advantages of private institutions.

This trend is not without consequence. With public schools now catering largely to economically disadvantaged communities, the burden on under-resourced institutions has increased.

Teachers face larger class sizes with fewer support staff. Learning materials are often outdated. In some schools, textbooks are shared among students, or not provided at all. Private schools, on the other hand, offer basic digital infrastructure, more structured timetables, and in some cases, additional coaching for board exams.

There is also a trend of migration for education. Families from rural Vidarbha increasingly send their children to Nagpur or Amravati for higher secondary and university education.

Students with greater aspirations move to Pune, Mumbai, or Hyderabad, seeking engineering, medicine, or civil services coaching.

Local colleges and universities in Vidarbha suffer from faculty shortages, administrative delays, and limited course offerings, prompting young people to look elsewhere.

The difference in outcomes is evident in board exam results and higher education placements. While private schools show higher pass rates in SSC and HSC exams, the gap between public and private institutions has widened post-pandemic.

Government school students face disadvantages not only in resources but also in access to after-school support, exam preparation, and career counselling.