‘We Are Not Learning Anything’: India’s Gen Z Rage Is a Test for Modi

The Roots of India's Gen Z Rage

The Gen Z protests that convulsed the streets of Indian cities in recent weeks began with dreams dashed in the classrooms of India’s schools. This represents the Achilles’ heel of India’s demographic promise: It possesses the world’s largest youth population, a factor that in principle can boost economic growth. Most Indian children are currently enrolled in school. However, millions of them graduate ill prepared for university, let alone for the workplace, even as their families pay more than ever for education and harbor big ambitions for their future.

That matters deeply because India’s young population—comprising 367 million people between the ages of 15 and 29—is the largest Gen Z cohort in the world. And even though their street protests ended this weekend with the resignation of India’s education minister, the rage against the country’s education system stands as one of the most serious challenges yet to the 12-year leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Detailed reporting on these events can be found in the New York Times World coverage.

“We are not learning anything here. Nothing,” Abeer Agarwal, a 19-year-old college student, said about his years spent in school, as he joined thousands demonstrating in the Indian capital last week. “Our schools are not up to the standard.”

Demographics and Mounting Pressure on Families

The trajectory of India’s swelling youth population is projected to slow by 2030, researchers say, which means that the country has a short window to take advantage of its demographic dividend. Access to education remains unequal across the nation. There is a noticeable exodus from government schools into private institutions. Families spend dearly on private tutors, while college admissions remain intensely competitive, expensive, and largely out of reach for the poor.

“Never before have so many young Indians been as educated and as connected,” concluded an exhaustive study on young people in the Indian labor market called the State of Working India, published this year by researchers at Azim Premji University in Bengaluru. “Creating remunerative and meaningful employment for this highly aspirational cohort is imperative if we are to reap the dividends of demography.”

The protesters cleverly played on an aspirational slogan coined by the prime minister. Instead of his “acche din,” signifying the promise of good days ahead, the protesters held up placards reading “bacche din,” signifying the promise of kids’ days ahead.

Academic Deficits and Infrastructure Shortfalls

Mr. Agarwal’s complaint about the quality of his education is directly borne out by official data. According to the latest government assessment of language skills, nearly half of all ninth graders in India are unable to summarize the main points of basic texts, such as news articles. Their scores on math, science, and social science assessments are even weaker.

Rural schools are in especially bad shape. According to the 2024 Annual Status of Education Report, carried out by an independent group, roughly 30 percent of children in eighth grade in rural schools struggle with reading and understanding second grade-level texts. Around half struggle with basic arithmetic.

“Teachers don’t care whether we are studying, understanding or even coming to school,” said Anshul Yadav, 20, the son of farmers and a high school graduate from a rural district in Uttar Pradesh State. College is entirely out of the question for him, he said, because paying for extra classes to crack college-entrance exams is beyond his family’s means. Instead, Mr. Yadav is preparing to take the army-entrance exam.

His frustrations led him to travel eight hours by train to take part in the protests in the capital last week. “Our eyes have opened,” he said. “We can’t unsee what we are now seeing.”

Many schools are still completely without the basics. A recent review by the government’s public policy research arm found that more than 100,000 schools lack functional electricity, nearly 99,000 schools lack a girls’ toilet, and nearly half of all government secondary schools do not have science labs. There was a notable shortage of teachers, especially in rural areas, and many teachers were unprepared, scoring below 60 to 70 percent in subject papers of the grades they teach.

The Financial Burden of Private Tutoring

India’s Gen Z was born after the opening up of India’s economy, and many of them were buoyed into school by a transformative 2009 law that promised free and compulsory primary school education. Their ambitions are high, as are the ambitions of their parents; so much so that spending on tutors more than doubled between 2017 and 2025, according to government surveys from both years.

Lakshmi Diwakar, 15, a 10th grader in a government school in New Delhi, needs private coaching in four subjects. Her mother is a domestic worker, and her father is a day laborer; the cost of tutors eats up nearly a tenth of their monthly income. But without tutoring, she said, she can follow very little in class, and her teachers have no time to entertain all her questions. “I am very weak in studies,” she said. “I don’t understand what the teacher is teaching in school.”

In another measure of ambition, there has been a steady exodus from public schools. Barely half of all secondary school students attend government schools, down from more than 70 percent just 20 years ago. Private schools are perceived as better, though they are not always superior.

Entrance Exams and Government Response

Abeer Agarwal, the protester in New Delhi, said it was all but compulsory to pay for private tutors if you want to compete in school or get into university. In high school, he went to private tutors for math and science, then enrolled in a yearlong online course to prepare for engineering college-entrance exams. He didn’t score highly enough to get into engineering school, he said, and is now studying physics and chemistry at Delhi University, even though what he really wants to do is be a filmmaker.

The family of Habiba Zinnera Moujood, a 21-year-old medical student, spent around $2,000—almost equal to India’s annual per capita income—on a yearlong coaching class to prepare for the medical-school-entrance exam in 2025. The expense was not easy for her family, she said, but it answered their prayers when she passed. Luckily, she noted, she did not have to face what 2.2 million test-takers faced this year, when the entrance exam was scrapped after questions were leaked beforehand.

In a measure of the pressure facing his administration, Mr. Modi on Sunday announced that an independent task force would look into how to reform the college-entrance examination system. The government has not announced any plans to address wider concerns about India’s education system.