KOLKATA, (India): The day began like any other at the school. Obedient children trooped in on Aug 13 at the Government Higher Secondary School in Jodhavas in the north-western Indian state of Rajasthan.
But on that day, they did not head for the classrooms.
Instead, they plonked down on the school grounds, chanting “Fulfil our demands!” to protest over longstanding grievances, such as the lack of teachers, which had stunted their academic progress. Only six teachers had been recruited to handle academic requirements for around 180 children at the school; seven other sanctioned posts were vacant.
Other complaints included inadequate classrooms and the lack of a dedicated playground for sports such as football.
Government school students have similarly trooped out in many other parts of India demanding better educational resources and infrastructure.
They have been encouraged by the infectious optimism that has rippled out from the recent successful protest led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in New Delhi, which ended in the resignation of India’s education minister.
Among the protesting children at Jodhavas was Tannu Sharma, a 10th-grade student at the school, which enrols students in grades 1 to 12. “We have only three functional classrooms, and even they leak when it rains,” she told The Straits Times on the phone.
Teachers tried to pacify the children, many of whose parents stood outside the school in support, but they did not relent. “All of us said in unison that we won’t budge until additional teachers are appointed, proper classrooms are provided and a playground is created,” the 16-year-old added.
The protest was finally called off on Aug 14, in the presence of representatives from the youth-led CJP who had come in support, after the local administration agreed to their demands. Six more teachers have been brought in, and work on other demands, including a dedicated playground, has begun.
These mushrooming “Gen Alpha” protests, many of which have inspired other similar acts of rebellion, have cast a harsh spotlight on India’s chronically under-resourced and underfunded public school system, which has weakened India’s demographic edge.
India spends around just 3 per cent of its gross domestic product on education. This is lower than the government’s 6 per cent target for total public expenditure on education.
In one instance, around 200 schoolgirls from an Uttar Pradesh government residential school blocked a key road in Lucknow in pouring rain on Aug 17 to protest against teacher shortage and poor-quality food.
“CM ko bulaya jai (May the CM – a reference to the state’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath – be summoned)”, they chanted, forcing the authorities to promise remedial measures.
In Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain, around 800 schoolgirls from Sarafa Kanya Higher Secondary School surrounded a top bureaucrat’s office on Aug 14 to oppose the proposed relocation of their school to a new site nearly 10km away.
“You demolished the houses of the poor... the public didn’t utter a word, but now that it concerns the education of girls, the public will speak out,” a teenage girl says in a video, as she harangues government officers, waving her left index finger in the air. The administration cancelled the school’s proposed relocation following the protest.
But students in Uttar Pradesh’s Mahoba district were not as lucky. They were forcibly removed by the police after they blocked the Jhansi-Mirzapur highway for nearly three hours on Aug 19 to protest an extended stretch that is riddled with deep potholes and often waterlogged, which hampers their daily commutes.
Experts who have long campaigned to improve India’s public education system have welcomed these protests.
“If schoolchildren are raising their voice, then certainly it should bring some focus on school education,” said Mitra Ranjan, the national coordinator of the Right to Education Forum, a national network of organisations and individuals that monitors India’s school education system.
“It is indeed a matter of happiness that children are coming out and asking for their rights, but it is sad at the same time because they expose the failures of the system,” he added.
These protests have come at a time when the CJP has launched the second phase of its campaign, which focuses on fixing India’s government schools. Its #SchoolThikKaro campaign – launched on India’s Independence Day on Aug 15 – has already gone viral, drawing photos and videos documenting the miserable condition of government schools in the country.
They show filthy toilets, classrooms without benches or chairs, buildings with crumbling ceilings or gaping holes in their roofs, windows without panes, and unappetising and unhygienic school meals.
CJP founding president Abhijeet Dipke said the condition of government schools would improve “magically” if all government officers working in the education department, including ministers, principals and teachers, enrolled their children in them. “Why do all of them enrol their kids in private schools? Do they not trust their own work?” he added in a post on X on Aug 18.
Longstanding neglect of government schools has led more and more Indian families to enrol their children in private schools, especially if they are English-language medium ones. The share of schoolchildren enrolled in government schools fell to less than half (49.2 per cent), according to a government report published for the financial year ended March 2025. Education in India is regulated both by the central and state governments.
CJP’s campaign, along with the mushrooming Gen Alpha protests, has already had some positive impact. In Rajasthan, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state government has announced it would repair 300 crumbling school buildings at an expense of 4.09 billion rupees (S$54.3 million). An alcoholic principal who drank even while at his school in Maharashtra’s Hingoli district has been suspended.
In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP state government has directed officials to verify complaints posted on social media and address genuine concerns.
But the Gen Alpha wave has also led to a crackdown. The authorities in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh have placed restrictions on outsiders coming in and filming in state-run schools. Critics, including opposition parties, have described these measures as an attempt to cover up the poor condition of government schools in their states.
CJP-led school inspections have also come under attack from alleged BJP supporters. In Rajasthan, a CJP delegation was physically assaulted on Aug 21 and forced to return when they showed up to visit a government school in Jaipur district.
In West Bengal, which is also governed by the BJP, Janab Mafik, the father of a CJP activist, died on Aug 15 after he was attacked by alleged BJP supporters, angry over his son’s visit to a school in Bankura district to expose the conditions there.
Ranjan noted that these protests can only bring limited change and that long-term, sustainable progress to rebuild a “just, rational and inclusive society” would require changes to the country’s education policies, including those that have pushed for the closure of certain government schools and their merger with others in the name of improving quality.
This, he added, had limited access to public education for many, who have found themselves farther away from schools, especially those from the marginalised and poorer sections of society.
Some corrective measures he suggested include increasing budgetary allocations for education with a clear roadmap for progress and associated expenses, improving school curriculums to include themes such as inclusivity, rationality, secularism and scientific temperament, and appointing well-trained full-time teachers who earn regular salaries, rather than relying on ad hoc or contractual teachers.
There were nearly one million vacant teaching posts in government primary and secondary schools and as many as over 100,000 “single-teacher schools” across India in 2025. Most of the latter are located in rural areas, highlighting poor access to subject-specific teaching in these underserved regions.
“We certainly support these protests but they are inadequate when it comes to changing the system,” Ranjan added. “It is also unfair for us – policymakers and civil society activists – to be content merely with children coming out to protest and outsource the task of improving India’s school education system to them.” - The Straits Times/ANN
