The protestors at Jantar Mantar demand the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in order to enforce accountability for the leak of the NEET exam paper. The BJP-led government promises strict action against those involved and reiterates the successful conduct of the retest. In the stand-off, however, one point may be getting inadequate attention — focusing on the examination is important, but not enough. While hundreds of thousands appear in competitive examinations like NEET, only a small number gets selected. The challenge facing India’s youth is much larger and encompassing: The vast majority continues to be ill-prepared and poorly-equipped to participate in India’s growth story.

Nor is this a matter that can be solved by higher budgetary allocations alone. The Union government’s allocations for education, according to an analysis in this newspaper, have come down sharply as a percentage of total government expenditure over the past 12 years since the BJP led-NDA government took charge. That downward trajectory is telling — it speaks about the government’s commitment, or lack of it, to education. At the same time, the central government’s budget allocation is not the only, or main, issue holding back improvements in the educational system of the country. Part of the problem is that education, which used to be a state subject until 1976, was shifted to the Concurrent List. This means the system’s efficacy calls for a substantial degree of coordination between the Centre and state governments. The quality and efficacy of the education system must also be measured by its ability to make students employable in an ever-changing economy, at a time when technological change and geopolitics are disrupting long-held assumptions about human resource management and growth.

Even though the government has received generous mandates since 2014, its commitment to education has been far less visible than the energy and political capital it has invested in advancing its chosen cultural projects. So far, other than a refresh of the National Education Policy, it has not adequately prioritised investments in human resources as the necessary infrastructure for prosperity in the new economy. By the time the next general election comes along in 2029, a generation of voters will have grown up in a country ruled by NDA governments. These young voters are likely to be much more impatient with the lack of reforms in the education system, and the larger toll it takes on growth. The Jantar Mantar mobilisation by the young isn’t just asking the government to fix an exam. It frames, instead, the urgent imperative to bring education to front and centre of governance — and the political discourse. The government, in its third term, with three years to go, needs to dial down the self-serving surround sound and listen to this message.