Education, Health, and Women’s Rights: India’s Decade of Unfinished Promises

In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised that India would become a place where “the world would come to learn.” A decade later, the education sector presents a more sobering picture — one in which lofty commitments have given way to creeping privatization, uneven access, and dwindling trust. Over 1.02 lakh government schools have shut down between 2014 and 2023, often due to poor infrastructure, low enrolment, and lack of state support. Some states, such as Uttarakhand, have begun inviting corporate houses to “adopt” schools, while others, like Haryana, subsidize private education for economically weaker students. These measures may sound pragmatic but they quietly shift responsibility for public education into private hands.

The higher education sector has grown in number but not in credibility. Universities have mushroomed — from 760 in 2015 to 1,362 in 2025 — yet many are registered under the Companies Act rather than academic laws, raising questions about legitimacy. The University Grants Commission reported more than 20 fake universities in 2024 alone. Policy frameworks like the National Education Policy 2020 promise reform, but in rural and tribal India, its vision of multidisciplinary learning and digital access remains an unfulfilled blueprint.

Even as budget allocations have grown — from ₹42,219 crore for school education in 2015 to ₹78,572 crore in 2025 — spending has been erratic. In 2020, nearly ₹8,000 crore of allocated funds went unused. Worse, India’s education spend has hovered at just 2.8–3.5% of GDP, far below the global benchmark of 6%. Essential learning tools such as notebooks, pencils, and school bags are taxed under GST, a silent penalty on the poorest families.

Healthcare tells a similar story: rapid growth in size without proportional gains in equity. India’s healthcare market grew from $110 billion in 2016 to a projected $638 billion in 2025, making it one of the world’s fastest-expanding sectors. Yet public health spending still languishes between 1.3% and 1.9% of GDP, well below the global average. Private hospitals dominate — controlling 70% of hospital beds and 80% of outpatient visits — while rural public health facilities limp along with chronic staff shortages.

Insurance-based solutions like Ayushman Bharat have expanded coverage for millions but lean heavily on hospitalization, neglecting primary care and prevention. Meanwhile, essential drug prices — from paracetamol to insulin — have spiked by 20–60% between 2019 and 2024. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority exists but acts reactively, not proactively. Generic medicines under Jan Aushadhi stores could offer relief, yet suffer from poor awareness and patchy distribution.

Women’s empowerment, once touted as a defining agenda, remains trapped between symbolic gestures and structural neglect. Initiatives like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and Mission Shakti have helped raise awareness, and the 2023 Women’s Reservation Bill is a significant political milestone. But ground realities paint a harder truth: crimes against women have risen from 3.2 lakh in 2014 to over 4.5 lakh in 2023, conviction rates remain below 30%, and nearly one-third of women have faced spousal violence according to the latest National Family Health Survey.

Economic empowerment has stalled, with female labour force participation falling from 23.7% in 2012 to 18.6% in 2022 — among the lowest in the world. Infrastructure gaps persist in education; over 23% of government schools lack functional toilets for girls, a factor driving dropouts. Schemes like Ujjwala Yojana and Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana have made some impact, but bureaucratic inefficiency and funding shortfalls limit their reach.

Across education, health, and gender justice, India’s pattern over the past decade is strikingly similar: big promises, bold policy launches, numerical growth, but deep inequities in access and quality. These are not failures of vision — the visions exist on paper — but of political will, resource allocation, and regulatory enforcement.

The danger is not just stagnation, but regression into a model where public goods are treated as private commodities, where the market dictates access to the most basic rights, and where reform is measured in headlines rather than outcomes. Without structural reform, sustained investment, and community-level accountability, India risks cementing a two-tiered society — one where the privileged thrive in private systems while the majority navigate crumbling public services.