The Millennium Development Goals adopted by the United Nations Millennium Declaration-2000 had set a target of 2015 to achieve minimum literacy for all UN countries. India, after much planning and thought, enforced the Right to Education Act in 2009. Its mission; to successfully impart education to students till the age of 14 years. With only two years remaining to the 2015 target, the RTE Act has begun to stumble on its feet

AN IDEA conceptualised by the mission and vision to impart education to all, the Act was looked upon as one of the most influential policies putting tremendous responsibility on the governments’ shoulders to ensure that every child in the country receives basic education. The World Bank education specialist for India, Sam Carlson, quotes: “The RTE Act is the first legislation in the world that puts the responsibility of ensuring enrollment, attendance and completion on the government. It is the parents’ responsibility to send the children to schools in the US and other countries.” Three years down the line, the RTE seems to be a lot weaker, with loopholes emerging in all aspects of the law. Be it the infrastructural requirement, assessment process or the teacher recruitment procedure, certain ambiguities over the details and instructions in the law have caused stress to both policy-makers and implementers. Private schools were earlier given a deadline of October 13, 2012, for the complete enactment of the rule which was then extended to March 2013—still consequences of the Act remain unclear. Private Schools, parents, teachers and the governments, have their versions of the story as to why the Act is failing. However, no one seems to have the right answers. DW looks at this issue and talks to experts, Parth Shah of the Centre for Civil Society, and Annie Namala, Head of Centre for Social Equity and Inclusion. Namala was appointed as a member of the National Advisory Council for the implementation of the RTE Act in 2010. So is the RTE doing more wrong than right. Does it need a new medicine to heal itself? PARTH J SHAH// The intention behind the formulation of the RTE was to universalise elementary education. Like every law in this land, the RTE has relevant components, and of course certain weaker components–making it a mixed Act. If you look at it and try to analyse its long-term impact, it would have a positive effect only if those relevant and somewhat more difficult aspects are implemented. However, it seems that the so-called weaker sections of the Act have received more mileage. Those are being implemented across a greater space and with greater consistency. Of course, the Act itself does not have all ‘wrongs’. One of the highly debatable, important and negative part of the law is of course the school recognition norms. Unfortunately all norms laid down are input-focused—they focus for example on the structure of the building, classroom size, teacher qualifications, teacher salaries—however, not on the important matters such as hours of interaction between teachers and students. This is why many people have labelled RTE as the right to schooling than the right to education. If the RTE is not properly implemented a student can be in a school for eight years receiving “free” and “compulsory” lessons. But whether he or she will emerge educated is open to debate. Data suggest that in India, today, more than half of our students go to low-fee, ‘budget’ private schools. Parents from economically underprivileged sections sacrifice their hard-earned income to send their children to schools which may charge anywhere between `50 to `300. My other concern is that if and when RTE’s input norms are implemented such schools won't survive. According to the Centre for Civil Society research, fees will hike almost 10 times than what they are now to meet the input norms of being a ‘recognised’ school. So will it be right to call an Act that closes more schools than opens them as promoting a “right” to education. My argument is that even though the private schools are not ‘perfect’, particularly the budget ones, the way to deal with this should not be to close them down but to create options and encourage competition. If government schools improve, parents will be more than happy to send their kids to those. Government schools not only not charge any tuition fee but also give you mid-day meals, free uniforms and textbooks. Along with the private schools, more attention should be paid to the public schools. Another weak point is that the Act doesn't talk about learning outcomes, focus is completely on inputs. The Millennium Development Goals also focus on elementary education and not on K-12. Why is RTE encompassing only those students under 14 years and not those who are 16 and above. What is great about the Act is the way it is being implemented, specifically the roles that the Centre and the state governments are playing in its implementation. The central Act has left its implementation powers to states and actually allows a state to make their own rules. A good example is the state of Gujarat. There the RTE norms are more focused on outputs than inputs. This means that if a school is fulfilling the learning outcomes—educating its students—then the state overlooks the fact that it may not have the best building, large classrooms or a playground. A survey conducted under the RTE asked parents to declare the monthly expenditure on their child’s education in government schools. Delhi, for example, showed that it spends an average of `1,200 per month per child in government schools. The budget for the private ones on the other hand was `400 a month and produced slightly better outcomes—according to parents. So if the government comes up with a more flexible voucher system, people would have a better choice of where to send their children, hence making it more egalitarian. It is safe to say that in all respects, be it cost effectiveness or efficiency and delivery of learning outcomes, the budget private schools seem to be a good option. So one thing that the government should do is to support them and help them improve their standards of education. My personal opinion on the 25 per cent reservation in the private schools for economically weaker section is that it is one of the better components of the law. The fact of life is that people like us can afford to go to better schools while most can’t. There is an increasing disparity in the access to education. Society is suppose to provide equal opportunities to all its children. One way to decrease it to make sure that some percentage, in this case 25 per cent, are able to go to private schools. As I mentioned earlier, the parts of the law that are good are not going to get implemented well, but the parts that are bad are going to get implemented more strongly, the simple reason being the self interest of the people involved in it. Because if a private school does not fulfil the norms then it is made to close down. We read about reports in Andhra Pradesh where 300 schools were shut down. Within three weeks, all came up and running. Now ask yourself what changed in two weeks time? It can’t be that the infrastructure has changed in two weeks time, simply the schools pay money, that is supposed to be paid to the inspector to continue its existence. So, the self interest is such that part of the norms that are negative make it easy to get implemented more quickly and efficiently all across the country profiteering everyone in the process and the good part of the law would not get implemented because private schools don’t want it, its a cost to them, governments, as usual, will overlook it. Its the dynamics of the situation which makes the bad things implemented faster than the good things.