Gen Alpha rises, one school at a time

As the bell that signalled the end of the school day rang at 2.30 p.m. on August 18, scores of girls rushed out of Ujjain’s Maharani Lakshmibai Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Sarafa, with cheers and chants of victory. They were celebrating an assurance from the Madhya Pradesh government that their school would not be shut and merged with a school in Daudkhedi village, 6 km away. Many had tears in their eyes — they would be able to continue their studies.

Located opposite the famous Mahakaleshwar Jyotirlinga Temple in Ujjain, the government girls’ school was founded in 1959. Most students here come from the rural pockets around. The celebrations, teachers say, are a result of the girls’ struggle and courage that they showed as they raised their voices before government authorities.

On August 13, local newspapers had reported the merger of various schools. Under the Madhya Pradesh government’s ongoing merger exercise, 10 more schools, five each from Ujjain city and nearby villages, are being shifted to Daudkhedi, impacting 2,978 students, as per a March 30 order from the Department of Education. Sarafa was to be the 11th.

On August 14, a day before India’s 80th Independence Day, more than 300 girls of the school, most between Classes 9 and 12, gathered at the campus. Instead of going to their classrooms, they headed to the Ujjain Collector’s office and staged a protest against the government’s plans to shift their school.

The demonstration, videos of which went viral in no time, saw the girls, many with their parents, raising slogans against the move, even as some of them broke down. Two girls fainted. Finally, the administration assured them that their voices would be heard.

As per the government’s Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2023–24 data released by the Ministry of Statistics, India’s female literacy rate stands at 74.9% for those aged 7 and above.

Over the past month, school children in various parts of the country, mostly in India’s northern States ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Rajasthan, have risen up to question those in power. Protests are around the education system and its access: broken roads leading to schools, teacher shortages, crumbling classrooms and toilets.

Gen Alpha rising

Most students were inspired by the Gen Z protests over question paper leaks and other irregularities in the competitive examination system. The protests had begun in New Delhi and then spread across the country, leading to the resignation of then Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, a move considered unprecedented for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Central government in its 12 years of rule.

The police brutality on students during their July 20 Sansad Chalo march to Parliament further angered a large section of the nation’s youth and their parents, a trusted voter base for the ruling BJP.

While the Gen Z protests largely involved college-going urban youth, the Gen Alpha uprising is seeing school students in small towns and rural regions questioning those responsible for their education. There is now a growing push for accountability and transparency.

On July 13, students of Eklavya Model Residential School (EMRS) in Chhindwara district’s forested Tamia tehsil raised angry slogans on the school campus alleging poor meal quality in hostels, saying there were worms in their food. Angry students, who gathered outside the school campus in the rain, demanded that the District Collector come and hear their woes. The school administration had not acted on their complaints, they said. The EMRSs are Union government-run institutions for students from tribal communities.

On August 15, a group of primary and middle school students from the Chandla area in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhatarpur district stopped the convoy of State Cabinet Minister and local MLA Dilip Ahirwar. They were angry about a broken road to their school, the absence of a boundary wall, and no electricity.

The same day, scores of schoolchildren, accompanied by some adults, from Chhatarpur’s Maharajpur tehsil set out on a 40-km march to the district headquarters over infrastructural woes, including a drain that swells in the rains, which the students have to cross to reach their school. Even though the march was stopped, as senior district officials went to meet the protesters, the protest went on for 18 hours and only ended after Maharajpur BJP MLA Kamakhya Pratap Singh met them after midnight.

On August 19, several children of a government primary school and their parents from Damoh district’s Arth Kheda village staged a demonstration at the Collector’s office over their school building. They said it was dilapidated and its roof could cave in with the rains. They raised slogans like, “Hum apna bhavishya maangte; hum apna school maangte (We demand our future; we demand our school).” They alleged that repair work in January did nothing for the building, and they were tired of administrative assurances. The school is currently being conducted at a temporary location in the village, a protestor said.

Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous State with over 200 million people, has so far witnessed four such demonstrations by Gen Alpha students in the last month in Hamirpur, Azamgarh, and Fatehpur, besides Lucknow, all over the lack of the basics.

On August 17 in Uttar Pradesh’s capital, Lucknow, over 200 students from Jai Prakash Narayan Sarvodaya Vidyalaya for Girls marched roughly 3 kilometres to the Dubagga-Kanpur bypass to protest against the shortage of teachers and inadequate basic amenities in their school. There have been similar protests in Rajasthan’s Alwar and Barmer districts and Bihar’s Gaya.

Governments feel the pressure

The August 14 protests by the girls in Ujjain prompted top BJP leaders and local officials to visit the school and hold discussions with the students on August 18, the next working day at the school, after the Independence Day-Nag Panchami weekend.

The protest held significance, as Ujjain is the hometown of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and a long-standing stronghold of the party that rules the State and is at the Centre. His sister, along with BJP MP from Ujjain Anil Firojiya and Ujjain North MLA Anil Jain Kaluheda, showed up at the school with several other administrative staff, including the District Collector.

“Chief Minister Mohan Yadav was informed about the proposal to relocate the Sarafa school to Daudkhedi. Keeping the convenience of the female students in mind, the Chief Minister immediately directed that their classes continue at the existing Sarafa school until alternative arrangements are made,” Firojiya said. He added that work would also be undertaken to construct a better school building after identifying a suitable site in the vicinity.

The quick outreach for the girls also holds significance, as women are considered a trusted voter base of the ruling BJP and were credited as an important factor in the party’s landslide victory in the 2023 Assembly elections despite anti-incumbency. After the meeting, a group of girls broke down while thanking the leaders.

Monika Sisodia, a Class 12 (commerce) student and one of the girls who led the protests, says, “While we were very disturbed when we found out that our school would be shifted, the August 13 news triggered us. We did not discuss our plans to protest with the teachers, but we decided to fight for our education.” Monika says that the girls had read about the Gen Z protests and were inspired by them.

“We have won the fight now, but we were ready to even go on a hunger strike to save our school. Had this not happened, many girls would have had to quit their studies,” says Monika, who dreams of becoming a police officer.

When asked if they feared online abuse, threats and trolling that many of the Gen Z protesters have had to face in the aftermath of their agitation, Monika and her peers said they are not active on social media.

A teacher, standing nearby, said, “Some of us teachers and parents were concerned about the possible consequences. So, we spoke to the students and advised them not to engage in any political slandering or language that may be problematic.” This came in the wake of criticism from a section on the Gen Z protests around abusive language.

Future and studies at risk

While the Sarafa school has got a lease of life, the 10 other schools to be merged with Daudkhedi are seeing dropouts. Prem Singh Parihar, who was the principal of Mahakal Maidan middle school, which has been merged, says that 117 students have taken their transfer certificates (TC) since April, bringing the school’s strength down from 282 to 165.

“Most parents who came to get the TCs had the same concern. They did not want to send their children so far. While some have borne the extra financial burden of sending their children to private schools nearby, there are a few who cannot afford it,” he says. More than 75 girls left the Sarafa school after their Class 10 results, with the news that their school would be merged, teachers at the school say. The overall strength of the school came down from 580 to 415 for the academic year 2026–27.

Nutan Middle School, Jaisinghpura, which has also been shifted to Daudkhedi, has seen 90 of its 300 students taking their TCs, as per data shared by the school. Ujjain Collector Singh, however, denies the dropout claims and says that some teachers who do not want to travel far to work are “making false claims” to prevent shifting.

The school in Daudkhedi has a modern building with 90 classrooms, facilities, and a large campus. The school is surrounded by fields and an open drain runs through its campus, making it unsafe.

Even though the government is currently running school buses for travel, students and parents have raised concerns for the children’s safety and the extra time spent commuting. For many students who travel from nearby villages, the distance to Daudkhedi goes up 15–20 kilometres.

Most of the students’ parents work as daily-wage labourers, while some drive autorickshaws or sell food and flowers in the temple town. They say that dropping and picking up their children from Daudkhedi will mean a loss of their daily earnings.

“My children leave at 7 in the morning by bus and return only by 7 in the evening. How will they study after a 12-hour day?” says the father of two primary school students, who now go to Daudkhedi. He works as a driver for a local BJP leader and does not wish to be named.

Many children also work after school to help their families financially and fear that extra travel time would hamper their work and studies alike.

Roshni Prajapati, a Class 11 (Arts) student at the Sarafa school, said, “My father drives an auto-rickshaw, so I make cotton lamp wicks after school and earn about ₹50 every day to help my family. There are many girls who sew or apply mehendi for some extra earnings. My parents, and many others, had told us that we may have to quit studies if our school was shifted.”

Several teachers and parents oppose school mergers but would rather not go public, fearing backlash from local BJP leaders and the administration in the future. “Officials have already asked school administrations to find out if the teachers had motivated the students to protest. Some of our names have already reached the authorities,” a senior teacher from a school says, requesting anonymity.

Burdened teachers and rising vacancies

On August 17, Vidhi Singh, 15, the daughter of a farm labourer and a student of Lucknow’s Sarvodaya Vidyalaya, walked over 2 kilometres in the rain. Her four companions suggested they take shelter until the rain slowed. She was resolute: “Let’s reach the bypass. Our march is more important.” Vidhi wanted to reach the spot where hundreds of others were protesting. “It may help to address the shortage of teachers,” she says. “Very few classes were being held due to the teacher shortage. This is impacting our studies in core subjects. We need qualified teachers immediately,” Vidhi adds. This year, she and her companions will take the Class 10 board exam.

In the heavy rainfall, the girls formed a human chain and sat down on the Dubagga-Kanpur bypass, demanding the Lucknow District Magistrate come to the site to address their concerns. They voiced their worries about the poor quality of food, the lack of medical services, power cuts, and high-handed staff. The demonstration followed an earlier demonstration on August 14, where over 100 students from the boys’ campus of the same institution, managed by the Social Welfare Department, blocked a road to voice similar concerns. Finally, senior officials from the Social Welfare Department and district administration engaged with the students, listened to their concerns, and escorted them back to the school. “We were promised that all our grievances would be solved within a week,” adds Vidhi.

Sadanand Mishra, a retired Government Primary School teacher in Lucknow, calls the protests the tip of the iceberg. He claims the crisis is much deeper and structural. “Most of the teachers’ working hours are spent on non-teaching duties like midday meal distribution, data collection, election duties, and HR processes like transfers and leave applications,” says Mishra, who is a member of the Uttar Pradesh Prathmik Shikshak Sangh, a teachers union.

A 2020 report by the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration pointed out that only 19% of a teacher’s annual school-working hours were spent on teaching activities.

Mishra adds, “It’s been over five years with no job vacancy for primary teachers advertised in Uttar Pradesh. Numerous young people completing teacher-training degrees are waiting for job opportunities despite lakhs of posts vacant.”

A report published by NITI Aayog in November 2023 stated that there were 2.1 lakh vacant teaching positions across government schools in U.P.

On August 15, the Cockroach Janta Party, which was one of the entities that led the Gen Z protests, began its ‘School theek karo (fix the school)’ campaign. Its founder Abhijeet Dipke is visiting schools across the country and documenting the gaping holes in governance.

Days after the announcement and in the wake of Gen Alpha protests in some districts, the Rajasthan government imposed a restriction on outsiders entering government schools and barred photography and videography without written approval, while citing the “safety and privacy” of students. In an X post, Dipke asked, “All those working in the education department, including Ministers, officials, principals and teachers, should enrol their own children in govt schools. Then watch how quickly our govt schools magically improve. Why do all of them enrol their kids in private schools? Do they not trust their own work?”

Edited by Sunalini Mathew.