A new survey has revealed a consistent gap between what students across high fee private schools experience and what teachers and parents believe is happening inside classrooms and beyond. This suggests that decisions about teaching, discipline, technology use and wellbeing are being influenced by adult assumptions rather than student reality, which risks deepening stress, weakening trust and leaving schools poorly prepared for the social and technological world students already inhabit.

India’s higher education sector has expanded steadily over the years, yet the benefits of this growth remain concentrated among those with social and economic privilege. For students from marginalised communities, entry into universities continues to be blocked by barriers that rarely make it into policy debates. In this interview, Manzer, a scholar working to bridge gaps in access, explains what keeps these students out of higher education, based on what he has observed while working closely with marginalised communities.

Over the last five years, more than 6.5 million (65 lakh) children in India have dropped out of school, Minister of State for Women and Child Development Savitri Thakur revealed in Parliament. Among them, nearly 3 million (30 lakh) are adolescent girls. The numbers point to a large-scale rupture in India’s promise of universal education, and also to structural gaps in the way schooling is planned, supported and delivered, especially for children from marginalised families.