Rahul Gandhi slams BJP’s education model, cites school closures and enrollment drop

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has accused the BJP of dismantling public education for marginalized communities, calling its development model an assault on the constitutional right to education.

Citing media reports, Gandhi highlighted on Facebook that government schools in India declined by 8% between 2014-15 and 2023-24, while private schools grew by 14.9% during the same period.

Another report he shared claimed a sharp fall in student enrollment among marginalized groups. In 2023-24, SC student enrollment reportedly dropped by 16.2 lakh compared to the previous year.

Enrollment also fell by 5.1 lakh among ST students and 38.5 lakh among OBC students.

In a post in Hindi on X, Gandhi alleged that the “BJP's development model is a model to snatch the right to education from the poor, especially SC, ST, and OBC children.”

He also pointed to a wave of school closures in BJP-ruled states. "More than 5,000 government schools are being closed in Uttar Pradesh. Since 2014, 84,441 government schools have been closed across the country, most of which have been closed in three BJP-ruled states - Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Assam," he said.

"This is not just closing schools but a direct attack on the right to education given in the Constitution and the historic law of the UPA government, which brought every child from every village to school and led to a historic increase in enrollment," Gandhi said.

Quoting Dr BR Ambedkar, he added, “Babasaheb Ambedkar had stated that education is the milk of a lioness, and whoever drinks it will roar, but today education itself is being snatched away.”

"Students and teachers are on the streets against the decision to close schools, but instead of listening to their voice, the government is busy harassing them and weakening the education system further. Whereas the need is to strengthen it and provide equal, accessible, and quality education to every child,” Gandhi said.