After Gen Z, India’s Gen Alpha rises, demanding education reforms

BENGALURU, Sep 4: It was past time for class, but none of the 122 students at the government-run primary school in SamuhiBhatpurwa village in India’s Uttar Pradesh were ready for lessons.
For once, they had something to teach the school authorities.

Dressed in their red-and-white checked uniforms, the students �" some as young as six �" refused to enter their classrooms until they received an assurance that the school would build the new building authorities had promised. Some, such as eight-year-old Priya*, held India’s national flag.

The current structure is old and dilapidated. A portion of the school lies in rubble �" unrepaired �" after a wall fell on a girl, severely injuring her in 2023.

Since then, the children have been asking for a new building for their safety. But no one listened to them until they launched their unlikely protest on August 22 , children no older than 10 challenging school and government authorities. As news spread that the youngsters were on strike, a senior education department official visited the school.

Block education officer Deepak Awasthi told the children that a new building would be constructed soon. That was when the pupils agreed to go back home as it was already close to evening.

“I am happy. We will get a new building. We (the children) dread the school building would one day fall. Its condition is poor,” Priya told Al Jazeera. “The fear does not let us concentrate on our studies. That is why we all protested.”

Priya and her friends aren’t alone. Children in at least 10 Indian states, including Maharashtra, Bihar, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh, among others, have launched similar protests in schools since late July. Protests have been reported in rural areas where government-run schools are crumbling under neglect.

The protests represent a challenge, not only for India’s education system, but also point to a new political test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government when it is already struggling to retain the support of young people.

Starting in early June, thousands of Gen Z protesters flooded JantarMantar, the protest hub in the heart of India’s capital city, New Delhi. Their most pressing demand was accountability after a series of high-profile examination paper leaks, which in turn were seen as responsible for dozens of young Indians dying by suicide.

But as the Modi government tried to cast the protesters as extremists backed by foreign forces rather than engaging with their grievances, their questions of those in power grew: India’s vast unemployment and underemployment crisis became another flashpoint for the protests.

The popular youth movement was led by the Cockroach Janata Party, or CJP, a satirical society formed in May to express angst over large-scale unemployment and systematic flaws in the education system.

When security forces that report directly to Modi’s de facto deputy, Amit Shah, brutally cracked down on protesters peacefully marching towards the Indian parliament, the Gen Z youth movement drew widespread popular support from across the nation.�" AL JAZEERA