Gen Z has already passed the baton in India. After spotlighting the country’s broken public examinations through an unprecedented popular movement, it is Gen Alpha’s turn to lay bare even deeper layers of dysfunction of India’s education system. There’s a message for the world in all this, and it better listen, because India’s education crisis is a global problem.

School students have picked up where the “cockroach movement” left off last month when nationwide youth protests that began with a satirical campaign triggered by question paper leaks and unemployment forced the Narendra Modi government to let go of its education minister whose resignation the cockroach activists had demanded.

This month, frustrated school-goers in many states have decided it is their turn to push back.

They are not asking for much, just the basics that the Indian state still fails to provide nearly 80 years after Independence.

So, in Uttar Pradesh, they are marching with national flags demanding the construction of a long-overdue road leading to their school. The principal of a government school for hearing and speech-impaired students in Rajasthan was suspended after the students staged a protest against the lack of decent toilets and proper classrooms.

In Madhya Pradesh, schoolgirls are protesting a bus fare hike they say has made their daily commute a burden on their families. In Maharashtra, students have been staging an indefinite sit-in demanding teachers.

🚨Students Protest Poor Conditions, Lack of Facilities at Government School in Alwar's Gaduwas Village pic.twitter.com/pYbTmzYsYK— The Tatva (@thetatvaindia) August 14, 2026

🚨Students Protest Poor Conditions, Lack of Facilities at Government School in Alwar's Gaduwas Village pic.twitter.com/pYbTmzYsYK

Most government schools, on which the country’s poor depend, function with barely any teachers, proper ventilation, functioning toilets, desks, science laboratories, or........

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