Reduce Overcrowded Classrooms and Set Maximum Class-Size Standards

The number of students in a classroom directly affects the conditions under which teachers teach. When classes become overcrowded, teachers have less time to interact with individual students, provide detailed feedback, identify learning difficulties, conduct activities and give additional attention to children who are falling behind.

But class size and pupil-teacher ratio are not the same thing. A school may appear to have an acceptable number of teachers relative to total enrolment while individual classrooms remain overcrowded because teachers are distributed across grades, subjects and administrative responsibilities. OECD data illustrates this distinction: in 2024, primary education averaged about 14 students per teacher but 21 students per class across OECD countries.

India therefore needs to measure and manage the number of children actually learning together in each classroom, not only the overall pupil-teacher ratio.

India should establish maximum class-size standards for primary education, with lower limits in the earliest grades and for classrooms serving children who require greater learning support.

The objective should not be to pursue the smallest possible classes everywhere. Teachers, facilities and education funding are limited resources, and reducing every class by a few students can require substantial additional spending without necessarily producing comparable improvements in learning.

Instead, governments should identify overcrowded classrooms first and progressively bring them within the national standard.

Every school’s education data should therefore include actual class size by:

School → Grade → Section → Number of students → Teacher assigned

When enrolment exceeds the standard, the education authority should be required to develop a correction plan. Depending on local conditions, this could mean creating another section, recruiting or reallocating teachers, adding classrooms, expanding an existing school or—where sustained population growth justifies it—building additional school capacity.

The greatest priority should go to Grades 1–3, disadvantaged communities and classrooms with large numbers of students requiring additional learning support.
Standards should also allow reasonable flexibility for small and remote schools, where rigid class-size rules could produce inefficient staffing or threaten access to a nearby school.

The planning cycle should be:

Measure actual class size → Identify overcrowding → Determine teacher and classroom needs → Add capacity → Monitor annually

This should connect directly with the teacher-recruitment and school-funding reforms proposed elsewhere in the India We Deserve education framework. Enrollment growth should automatically feed into future staffing and infrastructure requirements rather than allowing overcrowding to accumulate.

There is good reason to improve severely overcrowded classrooms, but the evidence also argues against assuming that smaller is always better.

One of the strongest studies comes from the United States. The Tennessee STAR experiment randomly assigned roughly 12,000 children in kindergarten through Grade 3 to different class sizes. Students assigned to substantially smaller classes achieved better reading and mathematics outcomes. The U.S. Institute of Education Sciences has cited STAR as an example of a large randomized education experiment producing positive results. Institute of Education Sciences

But another U.S. experience provides an equally important lesson. When California rapidly reduced early-grade class sizes in the 1990s, it had to recruit about 25,000 additional teachers, and the proportion of fully credentialed teachers declined—particularly in schools serving lower-income students.

More broadly, the OECD concludes that evidence on class-size reduction is mixed. Smaller classes can provide more individual attention and may particularly benefit disadvantaged students, but governments must weigh class-size reductions against investments in teacher quality, professional development and other educational resources.

That suggests a better strategy for India than simply pursuing smaller classes everywhere:

Eliminate severe overcrowding → Prioritize early grades and disadvantaged students → Protect teacher quality → Add classrooms where necessary → Measure whether learning improves

The goal should not be the smallest classroom India can afford. It should be a classroom small enough for a good teacher to teach every child effectively.