Fix schools, say India’s ‘cockroach’ protesters. Schoolchildren agree
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The squat one-storey building has recently received a fresh coat of paint and looks respectable from a distance
But this government-run primary school for girls in Faridabad, a district on the outskirts of the Indian capital Delhi, suffers from a host of problems
The road outside the school in Khedi Kalan village is dotted with shallow potholes filled with filthy water. Inside, local social worker Satpal Narwat points out the plaster falling from the ceiling
“It looks new from the outside, but it’s crumbling from inside. Four of its eight toilets are unusable and full of trash, while four of the nine classrooms have also been abandoned because they are too unsafe for children,” he says, adding that in the rains, “the classrooms get flooded and children have no place to sit”
This is not an isolated case. Many schools, especially in rural India, are starved of funding and in disrepair
India spends only 4.1% of its GDP on education. While this meets Unesco’s lower minimum threshold of 4%, several countries – including France, Germany, Australia, Brazil and the US – spend more than 5% of their GDP on education. Countries like Belgium and Sweden spend even more
Experts – and the Indian government’s own National Education Policy (NEP) – have recommended 6% as the ideal mark for India
According to official data, 94,000 government schools have closed here between 2014-15 and 2024-25. A report by government think-tank Niti Aayog says some were merged as part of efforts to streamline the system, but acknowledges that enrolment has fallen as demand for private schools has risen
The poor state of government schools is the focus of a new campaign by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). The online satirical movement made global headlines for its weeks-long protest in Delhi, which culminated in the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan last month
The protests had erupted in May after NEET, India’s biggest medical entrance exam, was cancelled following a question paper leak, forcing nearly two million students to retake the test. More than 20 students died by suicide, with their families blaming the scandal
Named #SchoolThikKaro (#FixTheSchool), the CJP’s latest campaign is aimed at highlighting the crumbling infrastructure in government schools and pressuring authorities into addressing it
“Government schools, especially in rural India, have been neglected for many many decades now. So, children who grow up in villages don’t have equal opportunities and they end up working in farms or as a daily wage labourer or construction workers,” CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke told the BBC
“It’s only because they don’t get the same facilities and the same opportunities that children in big cities get. And that is what we are trying to change by making schools better.”
Geeta Pandey/BBC
Geeta Pandey/BBC
On Thursday, Dipke said he had visited more than 20 rural schools and had “not found even a single good school”
“There were no benches, no bathrooms, no drinking water, no facilities at all. Even animals would not be kept in such a place,” he said
“What I saw was really heartbreaking. This is very similar to what I used to see when I used to visit my village during school summer vacation. And even after 20 years, nothing have changed there.”
In recent days, Dipke and other CJP leaders have shared several videos – of leaking roofs, dirty toilets, children sitting on the floor and angry students – with their 26 million Instagram followers
“We want to ensure that children get benches to sit on, good washrooms and clean drinking water. They should have smart classrooms with digital boards. That is when they will also feel that they are getting the same quality of education as those living in big cities in the country,” Dipke said
The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi or his Bharatiya Janata Party have not commented on the campaign
The BBC has also contacted India’s education ministry for a response
Meanwhile, the CJP’s protest in Delhi and the campaign to fix schools appear to have emboldened students across India and opened floodgates of complaints and set off localised mutinies against an administration many accuse of being apathetic
Armed with mobile phones, school students have been shooting and posting videos on social media – some of which have gone viral and prompted authorities to act
After one video of schoolgirls in Raigad, Maharashtra, mocking the condition of the road leading to their school went viral, the local authorities repaired it
In Uttar Pradesh, another video showed students running into the district magistrate’s office demanding a road to their school, while a thirdshowed schoolgirls asking an official whether he would send his own children to a school in such poor condition
Geeta Pandey/BBC
At Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, where the CJP held its earlier protest, the group demanded Pradhan’s resignation as well as an overhaul of India’s education system with greater accountability
Journalist and author Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay says “by the end of their protest, it was clear that it wasn’t just about one exam or one minister’s resignation”
“People there were talking about the state of schools and everything that’s wrong with them.”
Mukhopadhyay says the #FixTheSchool campaign is an obvious next step and “the way people have contributed with videos, pointing out flaws in school infrastructure, is evidence that the movement is gaining ground”
“It can’t be Jantar Mantar 2.0 as it will be much slower and a long-lasting movement. But the CJP will get a lot of support for the campaign because there’s plenty to talk about that’s wrong with the schools,” he adds
One of the biggest problems government schools face is a lack of teachers and other staff, says Chatar Singh, treasurer of the Primary Teachers’ Association in Haryana state where Faridabad is located
Singh is also the head teacher of the primary school in Atmadpur village. Its new building, funded by a private company’s corporate social responsibility programme, and students’ trophies make it one of the better-equipped schools in the area
But as we approach the toilets near the school gate, a stench greets me. Singh says the toilets have not been cleaned properly for the past two days because the part-time cleaner – appointed by the government to come in for a couple of hours every morning – has been sick
But dirty toilets are not his biggest problem – it is the lack of teachers, he says
Geeta Pandey/BBC
For the school’s 910 children, there are 40 teachers. But on Wednesday when BBC visited the institution, 30 had been deployed to help with voters’ list revision, four others were off sick, leaving only six teachers to manage the children
“Teachers are hired to teach, but across India, government deploys them to do a lot of non-teaching assignments. They are used for election duty and to conduct Census. Most of my teachers have been on voters’ list revision duty since July. It’s affecting the quality of education,” he says
Asked why he thinks the government schools are neglected, Singh says, “Do children of bureaucrats and MPs and politicians study in my school? No. They send their children to private schools because they can afford them.”
Most students here are children of migrant factory labourers, he says. “And a majority of them are from underprivileged castes and communities. Anyone who can afford sends their children to private school,” he adds
His claim holds true across India. It is visible in the mushrooming of private schools in small towns and villages
In Khedi Kalan when he was growing up, Narwat says, there were only government schools near him and he got his education there
The crumbling girls’ primary school which he gave me a tour of upsets him because the 62-year-old studied here from 1968 to 1973
“In those days, this was the only school in the village for both boys and girls,” he says. “The school building was relatively new. There were eight rooms and all were filled with students.”
He says flooding became a serious problem after the road outside was raised about 15 years ago, leaving the school below road level
Narwat, who retired as an officer in the state’s electricity office two years back, says he sent his children to the same school, but later moved them to a private school because they have better facilities
Geeta Pandey/BBC
Geeta Pandey/BBC
Narwat then takes us to the second primary school in the village – this one for boys, just a couple of hundred metres away. Here, classes are operating out of two rooms and a veranda. A second building with three classrooms was declared “condemned” and demolished about five years ago with assurance that a better one would be rebuilt. The patch is now a parking stand for cycles
Over the years, Narwat has petitioned chief minister, MPs and district officials, and written to the National Human Rights Commission, seeking improvements to the two Khedi Kalan schools. But he says little has changed
“I send my grandchildren to a private school,” he says. “It’s very expensive, but they have all the facilities. In village schools, the teachers are on election duty, and there’s no library or laboratory.”
The CJP campaign has given him some hope that the schools will finally get attention
“I think the CJP can be a force for good. They’ve taught people to fight, to not be afraid. The government has all the power and re
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