Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi
New Delhi, Jul 26: The Congress on Sunday said the recent protests at Delhi's Jantar Mantar and elsewhere across the country were triggered not only by an alleged unfair examination system but also by rising education costs and declining affordability for families.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the anger among students and parents stemmed from deeper issues of accessibility and affordability, citing an analysis by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
Referring to CMIE's household expenditure data for the period 2014-15 to 2025-26, Ramesh said education expenses have been rising significantly faster than household incomes, forcing families to allocate a larger share of their earnings towards education.
He said private tuition had emerged as one of the fastest-growing components of education expenditure, while school and college fees had consistently increased at a pace exceeding household income growth over the past decade.
According to Ramesh, spending on books and study materials has also risen sharply, reflecting higher textbook prices, increased expenditure on competitive examination preparation and greater reliance on supplementary learning resources.
"The Jantar Mantar and other protests in recent weeks have had proximate causes in an unfair and rigged exam system put in place by the deadly duo of Pradhan Mantri and (former) Mantri Pradhan. But the agony, anguish and anger of youth and their parents have more fundamental causes of both accessibility and affordability revealed by the CMIE household expenditure data," he said.
He added that students and parents were "crying out for remedial action now."
Ramesh's remarks came a day after Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned amid mounting pressure over the alleged NEET paper leak controversy. The resignation followed weeks of protests led by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), after the Centre accepted the agitation's key demands.
In his resignation statement, Pradhan said the developments of the past 10 days had deeply saddened him and that the issue was "not a matter of personal prestige."