The Cockroach Cry: Why India's Education System Is Broken | Interview of Prof. Emeritus Mridula Mukherjee by Mani Shankar Aiyar

The Cockroach Cry: Why India's Education System Is Broken | Prof. Emeritus Mridula Mukherjee 

On Mani Ki Baat / Suneet Ke Saath, Prof. (Emeritus) Mridula Mukherjee, JNU, and former Director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, drawing on her decades of experience in education, traces the roots of the rot in India's education system to motivated Hindutva interference in curricula, textbooks, examinations, student admissions, and faculty appointments.

Instead of cultivating young minds by promoting independence of thought, the deliberate centralization of every dimension of education for partisan political reasons, far removed from pedagogical considerations, has wrecked educational institutions that had, over nearly two hundred years, established themselves as institutions of excellence. Students and their future are left hostage to a single examination. Little wonder, then, that only a small fraction can find opportunities for creative and rewarding employment that matches their educational attainments, leaving the vast majority as unemployed—and increasingly unemployable—youth. The Cockroach Janata Party movement has touched the hearts of millions of young aspirants and reflected their anxieties about the future. That accounts for the massive turnout of young protesters at Jantar Mantar in Delhi and in scores of other cities across the country. The issues raised have been simmering for years and have intensified in the recent past. The resignation demanded of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan is presented as the symbolic beginning of a broader student demand for a thorough overhaul of India's broken education system.