A month into the academic year, Ashok Kumar Tyagi, principal of the evening shift at Sangam Vihar’s C Block Government Boys Senior Secondary School, had a problem. His physics teacher for Class 12 had retired and he didn’t have the money to pay his chemistry teacher.

“Our chemistry teacher is teaching without a salary,” said Tyagi, one afternoon in his office this May. “But he knows the system — stoicism in adversity.”

For the twelve students studying science in Class 12, one month had slipped by without any physics instruction. Instead, they studied chemistry in double shifts in an effort to cover as much of the syllabus as possible before the lack of a salary compelled their chemistry teacher to quit.

The school had a biology teacher, but none for computer science. Students studying computer science were being taught by a young mathematics teacher.

Nonetheless, stoicism in adversity: Tyagi and his students had been here before. “Actually we’ve never had any permanent science teachers,” Tyagi said, “Not once in the four years since we started offering science in 2013.”

Four years ago, principal Ashok Tyagi fought to introduce science in his school's senior classes but the government is yet to assign him teachers for physics or chemistry.

Little resources, large disparities

Sangam Vihar’s C block government school, also known as the Pahari school , functions as a girls’ school in the mornings, and a boys’ school in the evening.

The science wing is on the third floor. When it was built in 2012, Tyagi had a grillwork door installed. “I want students to feel special,” he said, “Like they are entering a place of knowledge.”

Only 279 of the Delhi government’s 1030 schools offer science to students in Class 11 and 12. This paucity of opportunities reflects disparities of both class and gender.

The children in these schools are working class; 127 of the 279 science schools in Delhi are boys’ schools, 54 are coed schools, while only 96 are girls’ schools, despite the fact that Delhi has more girls’ schools than boys’ schools.

This disparity is visible in Sangam Vihar. The school offers science to the 4000 boys in the evening shift, but not to 5700 girls who come in the mornings.

Delhi is no exception. Science education in government schools is in decline across the country. The impossibility of finding the Pahari school a physics teacher is emblematic of how the education system is deepening, rather than bridging, the country’s unequal society.

“We must offer science in government schools,” said Tyagi, “How else will the children of poor parents become doctors or engineers?” But Tyagi admitted that offering science was meaningless without providing the students with teachers.

While parents and children are deeply invested in the sciences, watch Anuj's story to see the challenges facing India's aspiring doctors and engineers.

The devoted student

Anuj Gupta is a science student: he’s skinny, high-strung, nervous. He stabs at his register with his pen and fusses with the figures. But then, suddenly, the squiggly formulae resolve into a solution for the charge contained by parallel plate capacitors and Anuj is at peace.

“All kids in Sangam Vihar help their families,” he said, “Some kids work. I study, study, study, study.” Vijay, Anuj’s father, drives a rented auto-rickshaw. It’s a “share-auto” – which means he plies set routes and passengers pay Rs 10 to hop on and hop off . He could use a helping hand, but Vijay takes the long view of the future. “Right now I want my sons to study and get a good job. Anuj is studying science. Why can’t a poor kid become a doctor?,” Vijay said.

Anuj Gupta, the son of an auto-rickshaw driver, is acutely aware of the strain his education places on his family's monthly budget.

So every afternoon, Anuj walks to a school where he studies for six hours. If a teacher shows up for class, he takes notes. In the unmanned physics period, he practices numericals or does homework from the physics tuitions he takes after class.

When school ends at 6.30pm, he rushes home, changes out of his uniform, washes his face, and goes to his tuition centre where he studies, till 9pm.

Sixteen hundred Rupees a month — that is how much it costs to take tuitions in physics, chemistry, maths and biology at the Pacific Coaching Centre. “The government says education is free,” said Girja Devi, Anuj’s mother, “But it is a board year, the kids don’t have a physics teacher. What are we going to do but spend on tuitions?”

How much does Rs 1,600 a month mean for the family? Anuj knows: 160 trips in his father’s auto at Rs 10 a trip. Each day, five passengers in his father’s auto are paying for his tuitions.

After dinner, he unscrews the house’s sole light bulb in the kitchen and plugs in the inner room he shares with his brothers. His parents sleep on the kitchen floor in the darkness, Anuj studies till late.