Describing India’s education system as a “system of refusal” rather than a system of choice, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi claimed that this system imposes an excessive financial burden and puts pressure on students and middle-class families.
Addressing a rally titled ‘Chhatro Ki Goonj’ (Echo of Students) at the coaching center in Kota, Gandhi said the current education structure is “extremely burdensome and unfair”.
“The education system in India is an extortion machine. We want a system that allows you to dream big,” he said, adding that the country’s youth are exposed to a lot of pain, stress and unhappiness.
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The Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha said that the education system in India pressures, pressures and crushes children. “This is not good for the country. I want all of us to work together to ensure that no student in this country feels what this girl felt,” he said at the gathering where he spoke to students on various issues such as paper leakage and unemployment.
In his opening remarks, he said: “This is not a political meeting. This is a meeting about you, about young people who are struggling to have a future. This evening is about you, and the challenges you deal with every day.”
He claimed that the system mainly pushes students towards a few career paths such as engineering, medical and civil services, while discouraging alternative aspirations.
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He cited exams like NEET, JEE, UPSC Civil Services Exam, SSC Exam and RRB, saying thousands of candidates compete for a very limited number of passes.
“For NEET alone, around 22 lakh students appear, but less than one lakh get selected. These are very tough odds,” he said.
He further claimed that the education economy extracts large sums of money from families every year. He claimed that “students and their families spend amounts equivalent to the entire government education budget for just one exam.”
However, the BJP accused Gandhi of playing politics at the expense of medical aspirants who are in the final stage of preparations to retake the NEET-UG exam on June 21.
“Is it because of the internal politics of Congress that you want to play with the feelings of students there?” BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said at a press conference in New Delhi.
(with PTI inputs)
