Sabotaging the future | BJP’s assault on public education

India’s crumbling education base threatens its aspirations for technological and economic leadership.

September 8 was International Literacy Day, and a time for us to not merely reflect but to confront a grim reality as well. India’s educational landscape has been devastated by over a decade of regressive, negligent, and ideologically-driven policies under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s regime.

Literacy is not just about reading and writing; it is the cornerstone of a free, informed, and empowered society. Yet, this foundation has been deliberately sabotaged through chronic underfunding, institutional decay, and orchestrated exclusion.

Collapse in school enrolment: A silent crisis

Perhaps the most glaring indictment of this failure is the precipitous decline in school enrolment. Since 2014-2015, India has seen a decline of 1.21 crore students at the primary level, amounting to a drop of 9.3%. At the middle level, enrolment has fallen by 36 lakh, and at the elementary level, the reduction totals a staggering 1.57 crore students.

The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) paints an equally dismal picture. At the primary level, the GER has declined from 100.1% in 2014-2015 to 90.9% in 2024-2025. At the elementary level, the GER dropped from 96.9% to 90.6%. This regression exposes the erosion of one of India's most critical development goals — universal primary education.

Learning outcomes: A generation at risk

Even more alarming is the collapse of learning outcomes, as highlighted in the 2024 PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan report. By Class III, 40% of students cannot read simple stories, and half of them struggle with shapes and spatial concepts. In Class VI, 44% can’t interpret texts, and 71% fail at simple fractions. By Class IX, nearly half can't summarise texts and 61% don't recognise number patterns. In Science and Social Science, most students can’t grasp fundamental concepts like classifying matter or understanding local democracy.

These learning outcomes reflect more than just academic failure — they expose a calculated dismantling of critical thinking, curiosity, and analytical reasoning. They reveal a broader attempt by the BJP government to hollow out the democratic and scientific consciousness of future generations, replacing it with rote memorisation and ideological conformity.

Deliberate dismantling of educational infrastructure

While earlier governments made consistent efforts to expand access through schemes like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, the BJP government has charted a regressive and exclusionary path, closing down tens of thousands of government schools. Since 2014, around 90,000 schools have been shut down, disproportionately impacting marginalised communities. Madhya Pradesh alone closed 29,410 schools, while Uttar Pradesh followed with 25,126 and is poised to shut 5,000 more. Recently, Chhattisgarh announced the closure of 10,000 schools.

These closures are concentrated in rural, tribal, and marginalised areas — stripping the most vulnerable children of their basic right to education. This pattern is not coincidental; it is a calculated exclusion.

Digital divide: A double marginalisation

The theme of this year’s International Literacy Day was ‘Promoting literacy in the digital era’. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi extols the virtues of Digital India, ground realities suggest otherwise. UNESCO has warned of double marginalisation, where children are excluded both from traditional learning and digital opportunities. In India, this danger has materialised brutally.

Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic, enrolment at the primary, upper-primary, and secondary levels remains lower than pre-pandemic levels. Class III students continue to show weaker learning recovery than they did in 2017. In this context, the government’s aggressive digital push becomes not a tool of empowerment, but a gatekeeping mechanism that locks out those already at the margins.

Domino effect on employment and higher education

The consequences of this collapse ripple outward into higher education and the employment landscape. Today, 44.5% of Indians aged 20–24 are unemployed, even among those with graduate and postgraduate degrees. The India Skills Report 2025 finds that barely 54.8% of graduates are employable, with some estimates even lower.

No economic progress, no technological leap, and no social justice movement can be successful unless the base of our education pyramid is strong. And that base is crumbling.

Empty promises, hollow rhetoric

All of this is further compounded by the government’s paltry and inadequate investment in education. The BJP-led NDA government has spent an average of just 3.5% of the total Budget on education, compared to 3.9% under the Congress-led UPA. This is far below the 6% of GDP that has been promised by the Congress. Even as the government boasts of slogans like ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’, it has consistently underfunded one of the most critical sectors for inclusive growth.

B R Ambedkar reminded us that “Education is not only the birthright of every human being but also the weapon of social change.” The deliberate weakening of public education under the BJP is an assault on this very ‘weapon’. It is not just an attack on schools or budgets — it is an attack on the future of India, on the spirit of democracy, and on the dreams of millions.

It is time to reclaim education from political apathy and ideological sabotage, and to restore it as a tool for equality, empowerment, and enlightenment.

Renuka Chowdhury, a former Union minister, is Rajya Sabha MP from the Indian National Congress.