India’s Gen Z Revolt Over Broken Education System Tests Modi’s Decade in Power

The Gen Z protests that convulsed Indian cities in recent weeks began with dreams dashed in the nation’s classrooms.

This is the Achilles’ heel of India’s demographic promise: the country possesses the world’s largest youth population, a resource that should theoretically turbocharge economic growth. While enrollment rates are high, millions of students graduate ill-prepared for university—let alone the workplace—even as their families spend record sums on education and nurture towering ambitions.

The stakes are enormous. India’s youth cohort—367 million people aged 15 to 29—is the largest Gen Z population on the planet. Although the street demonstrations subsided this weekend with the resignation of the education minister, the fury directed at the education system represents one of the most serious challenges yet to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 12-year rule.

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

Researchers project the trajectory of India’s swelling youth population will plateau by 2030, leaving a narrow window to capitalize on the demographic dividend. Access to quality education remains deeply unequal. An exodus from government schools into private institutions is accelerating. Families are sinking heavily into private tutoring. College admissions are intensely competitive, prohibitively expensive, and largely inaccessible to the poor.

Jobs remain scarce, even for the educated.

“Never before have so many young Indians been as educated and as connected,” concluded the State of Working India, an exhaustive study on youth in the labor market published this year by 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.”

Protesters twisted a signature Modi slogan to make their point. Instead of the prime minister’s promise of “acche din” (good days), placards read “bacche din” (children’s days).

Schools Aren’t Teaching What Children Need to Learn

Agarwal’s indictment is borne out by the data. According to the latest government assessment of language skills, nearly half of all ninth graders cannot summarize the main points of basic texts, such as news articles. Their scores in math, science, and social science are even weaker.

Rural schools are in particularly dire condition. The 2024 Annual Status of Education Report, conducted by an independent organization, found that roughly 30 percent of eighth graders in rural schools struggle to read and comprehend second-grade-level texts. Approximately half grapple 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. College is out of reach, he said, because the cost of extra coaching required to crack entrance exams exceeds his family’s means. Instead, Yadav is preparing for the army entrance exam.

His frustration drove him to travel eight hours by train to join the protests in the capital. “Our eyes have opened,” he said. “We can’t unsee what we are now seeing.”

Many schools still lack basic infrastructure. A recent review by the government’s public policy research arm found that more than 100,000 schools lack functional electricity, nearly 99,000 lack a girls’ toilet, and almost half of all government secondary schools do not have science labs. Teacher shortages are acute, especially in rural areas, and many instructors are unprepared, scoring “below 60-70% in subject papers of the grades they teach.”

“Classroom instruction is primarily dominated by the pressure to finish textbooks, often at the cost of foundational learning,” the report noted.

Families Pay More Than Ever to Fuel High Ambitions

India’s Gen Z came of age after the economy’s liberalization, propelled into classrooms by a transformative 2009 law guaranteeing free and compulsory primary education. Their ambitions—and those of their parents—are soaring. Government surveys indicate spending on private tutors more than doubled between 2017 and 2025.

Lakshmi Diwakar, 15, a tenth grader at a government school in Delhi, requires private coaching in four subjects. Her mother is a domestic worker; her father, a day laborer. The tuition fees consume nearly a tenth of their monthly income. Without it, she said, she understands very little in class, and teachers have no time for 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 aspiration, a steady exodus from public schools continues. Barely half of secondary students now attend government schools, down from over 70 percent two decades ago. Private schools are perceived as superior, though not always.

The pressure is relentless. Agarwal said private tutoring is all but “compulsory” for anyone hoping to compete academically or gain university admission. In high school, he attended tutors for math and science, then enrolled in a yearlong online course for engineering entrance exams. He fell short of the cutoff for engineering school and is now studying physics and chemistry at Delhi University—though his passion is filmmaking. “It becomes a pressure on the student also that their parents are spending so much,” he said. “They expect some results from us.”

The family of Habiba Zinnera Moujood, a 21-year-old medical student, spent roughly $2,000—nearly equivalent to India’s annual per capita income—on a yearlong coaching course for the 2025 medical entrance exam. The expense strained their finances, but it worked: she passed.

She considers herself fortunate. This year, 2.2 million test-takers faced chaos when the entrance exam was canceled after questions were leaked, forcing students to re-sit the test weeks later.

“I thank my stars the paper leak did not happen last year,” Moujood said.

That leak burst the dam of Gen Z fury.

In a measure of the pressure facing his administration, Modi announced on Sunday that an independent task force would investigate reforms to the college entrance examination system. The government has not announced plans to address broader systemic concerns.

College Is Prohibitively Expensive, Often for Little Reward

College enrollment has surged over the last 40 years, particularly among women; today, more than one-quarter of young Indians attend university.

The number of institutions has expanded significantly, but costs have skyrocketed, especially for professional degrees. The expense of a medical or engineering degree now exceeds the per capita spending of poor households, according to the State of Working India study. “Poorer households cannot afford professional degrees,” the report stated bluntly.

A degree, however, offers little guarantee of employment for millions of graduates.

Shane M., a graduate student at the University of Madras, believes only wealth provides certainty. Money buys better schools, fluent English, private coaching for elite colleges, and the connections to secure internships that lead to jobs. His father is a bus conductor; he abandoned dreams of engineering school because coaching was unaffordable.

“No matter how well you study, the system finds a way of breaking you,” he said. “Will I get a job or not is always a big question mark. It is better to graze cattle than to study.”

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