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Objectives: To assess and compare the prevalence of dental caries among school children aged 12 to 15 years in government and private schools of Ambala district of Haryana state, India and to provide a baseline data for planning and evaluation of oral health care promotion programmes. Materials and Method: A cross-sectional descriptive survey to assess the caries prevalence was conducted on 2010 school children aged 12 to 15 years in Ambala district. The data were collected by means of clinical examination using the criteria of Dentition Status. The student’s ttest and one way ANOVA were used for statistical analysis. Results – Children aged 15 years (46.5%) were having higher prevalence of dental caries compared to 12 years old (34.3%) which was statistically significant (p<0.05). Females (45%) demonstrated higher caries prevalence than males (41.5%). Mean DMFT ranged from 0.82 to 1.26. Conclusion – The observations of this study indicate the need for a school oral health promotion programme to sustain the healthy practices in this growing population. The overall prevalence of dental caries was low and close to that observed with the national study.