India's "Cockroaches" movement demands the renovation of state schools
Unsafe classrooms, unusable toilets and teacher shortages are at the centre of growing demands for more accountability in India’s government school system.
Sunday, 23 August 2026 09:45
India’s satirical Cockroach Janta Party has launched a #SchoolThikKaro campaign in India to highlight poor conditions in government schools, especially in rural areas.
The campaign, reported by Geeta Pandey, social affairs correspondent in Delhi for BBC News, seeks to pressure authorities to improve school infrastructure and accountability. CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke said government schools in rural India had been neglected for decades and that village children lacked the opportunities available to children in big cities.
At a government-run primary school for girls in Khedi Kalan village in Faridabad district, social worker Satpal Narwat pointed to plaster falling from the ceiling, flooded classrooms and toilets filled with trash. “It looks new from the outside, but it's crumbling from inside,” he said, adding that four of eight toilets and four of nine classrooms were unusable or unsafe.
Dipke said he had visited more than 20 rural schools by Thursday and had “not found even a single good school”. He said the schools lacked benches, bathrooms, drinking water and basic facilities, while CJP leaders have shared videos of leaking roofs, dirty toilets and children sitting on floors with the group’s 26 million Instagram followers.
India spends 4.1% of GDP on education, meeting Unesco’s lower minimum threshold of 4%, but experts and India’s National Education Policy recommend 6%. Official data cited in the report show 94,000 government schools closed between 2014-15 and 2024-25, while government think-tank Niti Aayog said some were merged and acknowledged that enrolment has fallen as demand for private schools has risen.
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