Girls from a Lucknow residential school march to demand teachers and better facilities

On Monday, roughly 250 girls from the residential Jai Prakash Narayan Sarvodaya Vidyalaya for Girls in Lucknow marched about 2.5 km from their campus to the Dubagga-Kanpur bypass, protesting chronic teacher shortages and substandard food, medical care and other facilities. The protest, held in heavy rain, emphasized that irregular classes in subjects like physics, chemistry and biology could jeopardise their upcoming board exams.

After forming a human chain on the bypass and demanding the district magistrate’s presence, police from Para, Dubagga and surrounding outposts attempted to negotiate for nearly two hours without success. The students then proceeded toward Hazratganj, walking on the wrong side of the Lucknow-Hardoi highway while police followed on foot. Senior officials from the Uttar Pradesh social welfare department and district administration eventually engaged with the demonstrators, listened to their concerns, and escorted them back to the school. The incident follows a similar blockade by over 100 boys from the school’s other campus earlier in the week, prompting a comment from the Samajwadi Party on social media about the growing unrest among Gen Z and Gen Alpha students.