NITI Aayog's 2026 school education report reveals Manipur's paradox — world-class primary enrolment and strong foundational learning, alongside critical infrastructure deficits, a secondary dropout bottleneck, and a widening digital divide.
By Keithellakpam Manikanta Meetei
NITI Aayog has released its landmark policy report, 'School Education System in India: Temporal Analysis and Policy Roadmap for Quality Enhancement', on May 6, 2026. Launched by Vice Chairman Shri Suman Bery and CEO Nidhi Chhibber, the report presents a comprehensive decade-long analysis of India's school education system — spanning 14.71 lakh schools and over 24.69 crore students — across access, infrastructure, equity, digital integration, and learning outcomes. Drawing on data from UDISE+ 2024-25, PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024, NAS 2017 and 2021, and ASER 2024, and shaped by inputs from over 150 stakeholders at the National Workshop on Quality School Education convened in February 2025, the report provides 13 comprehensive recommendations, 33 implementation pathways, and over 125 measurable performance indicators.
For Manipur, the report presents a deeply instructive and nuanced portrait. The state has achieved enviable early-stage enrolment and strong foundational learning outcomes, underpinned by excellent teacher availability and nationally recognised pedagogical innovations. Yet, it simultaneously struggles with acute infrastructure deficits, a leaking secondary education pipeline, a widening digital gap, and significant challenges in school consolidation. This analysis examines Manipur's performance across each of the report's key parameters, benchmarked against national averages and its Northeast peers, to draw out what the data really means for the state's educational future.
Manipur's Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) data tells a story of extraordinary early-stage participation that gradually converges with — or falls toward — national averages as students advance through the system. At the Primary level, Manipur records a GER of 140.5%, the second-highest in the country, trailing only Meghalaya (180.7%) and far exceeding the national average of 90.9%. These figures reflect strong community participation in early schooling, though they also incorporate over-age and under-age enrolments that can inflate the headline number.
The trajectory beyond primary school is sobering. Upper Primary GER holds at 92.8% — slightly above the national 90.3% — but Secondary GER falls to 78.8%, almost exactly matching the national average of 78.7%. By the time students reach Higher Secondary, Manipur's GER stands at 58.4%, precisely at the national average. Within the Northeast, this positions Manipur in the mid-tier: performing better than Nagaland (39.8%) and Arunachal Pradesh (43.7%), but well below the trajectory its primary figures might suggest.
Girls' enrolment reinforces both the strengths and the pressures. Girls' GER at Primary (142.3%) and Upper Primary (95.6%) significantly exceeds national averages of 92.3% and 92.5% respectively — evidence of robust female participation in early schooling. However, at the Higher Secondary level, Girls' GER falls to 59.3%, marginally below the national average of 60.9%, signalling a narrowing window of female retention as education progresses.
|
Education Stage |
Manipur GER |
National GER |
NE Context |
|
Primary |
140.5% |
90.9% |
2nd highest nationally |
|
Upper Primary |
92.8% |
90.3% |
Mid-tier in NE |
|
Secondary |
78.8% |
78.7% |
Above Nagaland, AP |
|
Higher Secondary |
58.4% |
58.4% |
Mid-tier; NE crisis zone |
Manipur's transition and dropout data reveals a complex and internally contradictory picture. The transition rate from Primary to Upper Primary — at 84.3% — is among the weakest in the Northeast, significantly below the national average of 92.2%, and only Meghalaya performs worse in the region. This early transition weakness is a structural concern, often driven by the geographic fragmentation of schooling across the state's hilly terrain, where primary schools exist without co-located upper primary sections, effectively creating natural exit points.
However, the picture improves significantly at higher levels. The Upper Primary to Secondary transition rate is 90.9%, above the national average of 86.6%, and the Secondary to Higher Secondary transition rate is 77.9%, above the national 75.1% — both outperforming most Northeast states. This suggests that students who do successfully navigate the early transition are more likely to persist through the upper secondary years. Dropout rates similarly present a mixed profile:
• Primary dropout rate stands at 2.9%, above the national average of 0.3%, reflecting the primary transition challenge.
• Upper Primary dropout rate is an exceptionally low 0.6% — against a national 3.5% — the best in the entire Northeast region.
• Secondary dropout rate is 9.1%, below the national 11.5% and the best-performing state in the Northeast, where states like Arunachal Pradesh (18.3%) and Assam (17.5%) are struggling significantly.
The data suggests that once students are retained in Upper Primary education, Manipur's system does a markedly better job of holding them through to secondary completion than its regional peers. The critical intervention zone remains the Primary-to-Upper Primary transition.
Infrastructure is where Manipur's performance data is most troubling, with the state lagging behind national averages on nearly every metric. Only 63.3% of Manipur's schools have functional electricity, against a national average of 91.9% — the second-worst figure in the Northeast, ahead of only Meghalaya's 28.1%. Sanitation coverage is similarly deficient: functional boys' toilets are at 76.4% (national: 92.4%) and girls' toilets at 74.5% (national: 94%), placing Manipur among the most deficient states nationally for basic school sanitation. As the report emphasises, the absence of functional girls' toilets is not merely a hygiene issue — it is a structural driver of adolescent girl dropout, particularly at the secondary level.
Digital infrastructure presents an equally stark picture. Only 38.0% of schools have computers (national: 64.7%), 36.6% have internet connectivity (national: 63.5%), and smart classrooms are available in just 18.6% of schools against a national average of 30.6%. These figures are not simply development lag — they represent a direct barrier to the implementation of NEP 2020's ICT-enabled pedagogy mandates, DIKSHA-based content delivery, and the AI integration that the report's academic recommendations require. States that cannot provide basic digital access to their students are, in effect, locked out of the 21st-century educational ecosystem.
Inclusive infrastructure for Children with Special Needs (CwSN) is also critically deficient. Only 42.6% of Manipur's schools have ramps — well below the national average of 79.1%, though marginally better than Arunachal Pradesh (28.2%) and Meghalaya (32.8%). This gap directly undermines the 'equity' pillar of NEP 2020 and prevents students with disabilities from full participation in the learning environment.
PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024 data positions Manipur as one of the stronger-performing states in the Northeast at the foundational and preparatory stages — a significant finding given the region's generally below-average learning outcomes. At Grade 3, Manipur students average 71% in Language and 67% in Mathematics, comfortably exceeding national averages of 64% and 60% respectively. At Grade 6, performance remains slightly above national benchmarks: Language (58% vs. 57%), Mathematics (48% vs. 46%), and Environmental Studies (51% vs. 49%).
The picture shifts at Grade 9, where learning outcomes experience a pronounced dip below national averages — Language 52% (national: 54%), Mathematics 35% (national: 37%), Science 39% (national: 40%), and Social Science 39% (national: 40%). This middle school learning dip mirrors the transition challenges identified in the enrolment and dropout data, and likely reflects both the quality of instructional leadership in the middle school years and the compounding effects of geographic isolation on teacher deployment and curriculum delivery.
The NITI Aayog report's broader analysis identifies a critical pedagogical misalignment across many states, where teachers prioritise textbook completion over conceptual mastery — producing students with surface-level recall but weak inference and application skills. NAS data from 2017 to 2021 shows that Manipur's foundational recovery is genuine but fragile, and sustained only where NIPUN Bharat Mission interventions have been consistently applied.
Teacher availability is one of Manipur's most significant structural advantages. The state records a Primary Pupil-Teacher Ratio (PTR) of 13:1 against a national average of 20:1; Upper Primary PTR is 9:1 (national: 17:1); Secondary PTR is 9:1 (national: 15:1); and Higher Secondary PTR is 14:1 (national: 23:1). Across every stage, Manipur's classrooms are substantially less crowded than the national norm, a structural condition that — if leveraged effectively — should significantly advantage learning quality.
However, favourable PTR averages mask important deployment imbalances. Manipur operates 4,666 schools, of which 383 are single-teacher schools serving 9,115 students, and 35 schools report zero enrolment while officially retaining 60 teachers between them. These figures point to a mismatch between teacher deployment and student concentration — a common problem in geographically fragmented states, where small, isolated schools draw teacher resources without delivering proportionate educational outcomes. Tripura, a comparable Northeast state, reports 6,006 teacher vacancies at the elementary level, underlining that the challenge is regional rather than isolated to Manipur.
Despite these systemic challenges, Manipur is prominently featured in the NITI Aayog report's case studies of good practices — a recognition that the state is not merely a passive recipient of national policy but an active contributor to India's educational thinking. Two initiatives are particularly significant.
The Comic Textbooks initiative reinterpreted the NCF curriculum into visually enriched, story-based texts for Grades 1 to 5, subsequently expanded to Grades 6 to 8 across subjects including English, Manipuri, Mathematics, Science, and Social Science. By embedding complex concepts within accessible narratives, the programme demonstrably improves student engagement, concept retention, and recall — addressing precisely the foundational learning deficit that NAS and PARAKH data identify as the region's weakest point. This approach aligns directly with the 'transforming pedagogy and foundational learning' strand of the report's academic recommendations.
The Unique Selling Proposition (USP) Initiative addresses vocational education by embedding hands-on artisanal training — in carpentry, pottery, and weaving — directly into the regular school timetable for Grades 6 to 8. Local artisans deliver instruction within the school setting, bridging the gap between academic learning and the regional livelihood economy. This initiative is a direct precursor to NEP 2020's requirement for vocational integration from Grade 6, and Manipur's practical experience in executing it gives the state a significant implementation head-start over peers that are only beginning to design such programmes.
The NITI Aayog report's 13 recommendations and 33 implementation pathways provide a clear structural agenda for states like Manipur. The most urgent priorities for the state, mapped to the report's framework, centre on three domains:
• School Consolidation: Aggressively converting standalone primary and middle schools into Grade 1-12 Composite Schools to eliminate the natural exit points that drive Primary-to-Upper Primary dropout. This is simultaneously the most structurally impactful and logistically complex reform given Manipur's terrain.
• Digital Infrastructure: Prioritising universal internet connectivity and smart classroom coverage as foundational rather than aspirational targets. Without digital access, the state cannot implement AI-assisted pedagogy, DIKSHA content, or online assessment systems — leaving its students educationally disconnected from the national mainstream.
• Nodal School Resource Hubs: Operationalising select schools as resource anchors to share science labs, ICT infrastructure, and subject-specialist teachers with satellite schools in difficult terrain, maximising the state's favourable PTR advantage rather than allowing it to be diluted across fragmented single-teacher institutions.
The report's implementation timelines — structured across short (1-2 years), medium (3-5 years), and long-term (5-10 years) horizons — suggest that foundational literacy mastery under NIPUN Bharat must be the immediate priority, followed by institutional reform through school complexes, and ultimately by universal digital and vocational integration.
ANALYSIS
The NITI Aayog report does not position Manipur as an educational underperformer. What the data reveals is a state in structural transition — one that has genuinely strong community engagement, impressive early-stage outcomes, world-class teacher ratios, and proven pedagogical innovation, but is held back by infrastructure that has not kept pace with its ambitions. The risk is not that Manipur is failing its students in primary school. The risk is that it loses them at the gate to secondary education, and then fails to equip the students who remain with the digital and vocational tools that the 21st century economy demands. Closing those gaps — through school consolidation, digital investment, and targeted secondary retention strategies — is the central task that the NITI Aayog framework places before the state as India moves toward Viksit Bharat 2047.
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(Keithellakpam Manikanta Meetei is a seasoned journalist and a former educator. He also writes under his pen name Keicha Chingthou Mangang instead of his actual name. You can contact him at chingthouheiya@gmail.com)
