The state of technical education in Uttar Pradesh has long been a cause for concern. Due to the lack of modern laboratories and equipment in polytechnics and engineering colleges, along with weak training standards, degree and diploma holders are unable to acquire skills that meet industry demands. The growing gap between education and industry has left millions of youth lagging in the race for employment.

India’s higher education system is vast, but its foundations are weak. With only three per cent of GDP allocated to education, universities struggle with resource shortages and overcrowding. Rote learning and exam-centric pedagogy have stifled creativity, reducing education to a race for marks. As a result, student stress and suicide rates are rising. While global universities emphasise AI-driven personalised learning and industry-aligned skills, Indian institutions remain trapped in bureaucracy, churning out unemployable graduates.

Missiles and drones can be built, and Shuklaji can be given a piggyback ride to space. However, until there is radical reform in primary and secondary education, and six per cent of the GDP is allocated to implementing the New Education Policy, Indian students will continue to struggle in science, mathematics, and language communication. This is no way to achieve a developed India by 2047!

Dust-choked roads, bridges collapsing at breakneck speed, and schools reduced to rubble—this is the reality of our so-called ‘development’! In a country where billions of rupees from the public treasury are poured like water, the common people are left with shoddy work and broken promises. This contractor system has turned the nation’s progress into a looting spree, where quality is sacrificed at the altar of corruption. It’s a poison eating away at India’s development from within.

Ever since university campuses have fallen silent and lifeless, the country’s politics has faced a drought of new youth leadership. Student union elections have either been banned or reduced to mere formalities. The echo of debates no longer resonates in universities like Lucknow, Varanasi, Allahabad, Patna, and Gorakhpur, once traditional hubs of ideas.

"Back in the days when we studied at St Peter's, we five brothers, who were in different classes, used to study from the same book. For years, the Radiant Reader, Wren's Grammar, history, and geography books were not changed. Second-hand books were available on Hospital Road. We had just one uniform, khaki, and one pair of black shoes that we polished daily to keep them shiny. But now, every year brings the same lament—everything changes in the name of business." This was the anguish of Tauji Prem Nath, who studied in the 1950s.