India's satirical student protest movement, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), known for its role in forcing the resignation of the Union Education Minister, has turned its attention from exam reform to the crumbling state of government schools. The newly launched 'School Thik Karo' (Fix the Schools) campaign seeks to enlist citizens in a nationwide audit of rural schools, identifying failures and demanding accountability. The movement's emergence reflects deepening concerns about the country's educational infrastructure, access, and quality, which several reports have linked to broader economic challenges facing India's youth.
The CJP's latest effort was launched on the 80th Independence Day, with founder Abhijeet Dipke initiating the drive from his native village of Santuk Pimpri in Maharashtra's Hingoli district. According to Deutsche Welle, the campaign urges parents, students, and residents to inspect local government schools, document what is missing, and pressure authorities. Reports describe Dipke speaking to students and documenting broken windows, a lack of clean drinking water, missing benches, and unusable bathrooms. The CJP has prepared assessment forms that citizens can use to record video evidence of problems, which will be compiled into a public record of neglected schools.
The 'Cockroach' Movement and Its Goals
The CJP, which bills itself as the voice of the lazy and unemployed, first gained widespread attention in May when its protests – sparked by the cancellation of the NEET medical entrance exam after a paper leak – escalated into a nationwide youth agitation. The demonstrations ended last month with the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and the government's concession of demands for examination reform, as The Hindu reported.
The group now aims to redirect its energies. In an open letter to state education ministers, Dipke demanded public disclosure of a range of data, including the number of schools renovated in the past five years, teacher vacancies, funds allocated versus spent, the need for additional schools, non-teaching duties assigned to educators, and basic facilities such as toilets, drinking water, and computer labs, The Economic Times reported. He stressed that access to basic education is a fundamental right and called on governments to act urgently on what he described as a deteriorating state of rural education. In the letter, he remarked that through administrative neglect, children are treated 'worse than animals'.
The campaign's focus, according to Deutsche Welle and The Economic Times, is on five basic requirements: functioning toilets, electricity, clean drinking water, classroom benches, and the quality of midday meals. The CJP has set an immediate target to audit at least 100 rural schools in its first two months, with assessments to be carried to the public.
Ground Realities: Isolated Cases and the Larger Picture
The campaign aims to spotlight problems such as those seen at a primary school for girls in Khedi Kalan village, Faridabad, as described by the BBC. Local social worker Satpal Narwat, who studied at the school in the 1960s, points out plaster crumbling from the ceiling, four unusable toilets among eight, and four abandoned classrooms among nine. The facility, he says, has been in a state of disrepair for too long, and during rains, rooms flood, leaving children without a place to sit.
Such infrastructure distress is widespread, with official data indicating that 94,000 government schools closed between 2014-15 and 2024-25, as reported by both The Hindu and the Free Press Journal. The drain statistics also appear in a survey by the government think-tank Niti Aayog, as cited by the Free Press Journal, which showed 26,000 of those closures in Uttar Pradesh alone.
Statistical evidence suggests more than just physical decay. According to a parliamentary panel, nearly 73% of students drop out before finishing higher secondary stage, and government school enrolment during 2022-23 and 2024-25 fell from 13.62 crore to 12.16 crore, as per Free Press Journal's citation of a Rajya Sabha reply. Meanwhile, a report by Niti Aayog reviewed by the BBC noted that some closures stem from merges aimed at streamlining the system, but also admitted that enrolment had fallen as families turn to private schools.
Teacher issues also compound the problem. A headteacher in a school near the capital, Chatar Singh, told BBC News that most of his teachers had been on voters' list revision duty since July, affecting education quality. With a teacher shortage and routine deployment on non-teaching tasks like electoral duties and census work, dedicated classroom instruction suffers.
Experts and Activists: Concern and Hope
Social activist Aruna Roy, a figure in the transparency movement, was quoted by Deutsche Welle as saying the CJP's campaign could tap into a wider constituency of young people demanding accountability. Activist Amrita Johri, also cited in the same report, said every government school should publicly disclose its spending, infrastructure, teacher vacancies, and midday meal provision—echoing the CJP's open letter. Former president of the All India Students' Association, N. Sai Balaji, told Deutsche Welle that the CJP's movement and existing student movements will converge. The reports also note that the CJP's model may eventually extend to public healthcare facilities.
Economics of Education: A Broader Crisis
The campaign's drive for more government schools may be pivotal for access, but The Hindu—reporting its own analysis—underscores economic constraints separate from infrastructure. Using survey data from India's Ministry of Statistics (MoSPI), The Hindu states private coaching consumes 16% of a family's spending on education, up from 12.5% in 2018, and over a quarter of the education budget by the higher secondary years when students prepare for competitive exams. With over 22 lakh candidates for about 1.4 lakh seats in the medical entrance exam, only a fraction winning places, this intensifies the pressure.
The same The Hindu analysis shows that for the first time since the All India Survey on Higher Education began in 2011, undergraduate enrolment dropped in 2023-24, by 93,322, particularly among young men. Notes on state-wise figures, UP witnessed a 1.53 lakh decrease, even as diploma enrolments rose by 1.38 lakh. The shift may reflect students moving to more job-oriented courses, but the employment numbers from the Periodic Labour Force Survey are sobering: of every 100 graduates aged 15 to 29 in 2025, only 26 were in regular salaried employment—and a mere 4 held a job with a contract and social security.
The CJP signals an emerging force for accountability, a question remains whether learning that demand—or which officials, as one article removed The Free Press Journal calls the government's dilemma: a confrontational or conciliatory approach. The campaign's success, as one report put it, might depend on expanding its appeal beyond the student protesters.