India has been a major seat of learning for thousands of years, dating back to ancient seats of learning like Nalanda. In modern times, Indian educational institutions (such as the IITs, IISc, IIMs, NITs,AIIMS, ISI, BITS, and ISB) are well known worldwide. India, being a developing nation, struggles with challenges in its primary education and strives to reach 100% literacy. Universal Compulsory Primary Education, with its challenges of keeping poor children in school and maintaining quality of education in rural areas, has been difficult to achieve (Kerala is an Indian state to reach this goal so far). All levels of education in India, from primary to higher education, are overseen by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (Department of Higher Education (India) and Department of School Education and Literacy), and heavily subsidized by the Indian government, though there is a move to make higher education partially self-financing. The Indian Government is considering to allow 100% foreign direct investment in Higher Education.

There are broadly four stages of school education in India, namely primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary (or high school). Overall, schooling lasts 12 years, following the "10+2 pattern". However, there are considerable differences between the various states in terms of the organizational patterns within these first 10 years of schooling. The government is committed to ensuring universal elementary education (primary and upper primary) education for all children aged 6-14 years of age. Primary school includes children of ages six to eleven, organized into classes one through five. Upper Primary and Secondary school pupils aged eleven through fifteen are organized into classes six through ten, and higher secondary school students ages sixteen through seventeen are enrolled in classes eleven through twelve. In some places there is a concept called Middle/Upper Primary schools for classes between six to eight. In such cases classes nine to twelve are classified under high school category. Higher Education in India provides an opportunity to specialize in a field and includes technical schools (such as the Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Informaton Technology, Design & Manufacturing), colleges, and universities.

In India, the main types of schools are those controlled by:

Overall, according to the latest Government Survey undertaken by NUEPA (DISE, 2005-6), there are 1,124,033 schools.