Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (By Harpreet Singh)

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education or 'Right to Education Act also known as RTE', is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted on 4 August 2009, which describes the modalities of the importance of free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India under Article 21A of the Indian Constitution.[1] India became one of 135 countries to make education a fundamental right of every child when the act came into force on 1 April 2010.

Implementation and funding

Education in the Indian constitution is a concurrent issue and both centre and states can legislate on the issue. The Act lays down specific responsibilities for the centre, state and local bodies for its implementation. The states have been clamouring that they lack financial capacity to deliver education of appropriate standard in all the schools needed for universal education.[18] Thus it was clear that the central government (which collects most of the revenue) will be required to subsidise the states.

A committee set up to study the funds requirement and funding initially estimated that Rs 1710 billion or 1.71 trillion (US$38.2 billion) across five years was required to implement the Act, and in April 2010 the central government agreed to sharing the funding for implementing the law in the ratio of 65 to 35 between the centre and the states, and a ratio of 90 to 10 for the north-eastern states.[19] However, in mid 2010, this figure was upgraded to Rs. 2310 billion, and the center agreed to raise its share to 68%.[18] There is some confusion on this, with other media reports stating that the centre's share of the implementation expenses would now be 70%.[20] At that rate, most states may not need to increase their education budgets substantially.

A critical development in 2011 has been the decision taken in principle to extend the right to education till Class X (age 16)[21] and into the preschool age range.[22] The CABE committee is in the process of looking into the implications of making these changes.


Criticism

The act has been criticised for being hastily drafted,[29] not consulting many groups active in education, not considering the quality of education, infringing on the rights of private and religious minority schools to administer their system, and for excluding children under six years of age.[30] Many of the ideas are seen as continuing the policies of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan of the last decade, and the World Bank funded District Primary Education Programme DPEP of the '90s, both of which, while having set up a number of schools in rural areas, have been criticised for being ineffective[31] and corruption-ridden.[32]

The quality of education provided by the government school system is not good.[33] While it remains the largest provider of elementary education in the country, forming 80% of all recognised schools, it suffers from shortage of teachers and infrastructural gaps. Several habitations lack schools altogether. There are also frequent allegations of government schools being riddled with absenteeism and mismanagement and of appointments made on political convenience. Despite the allure of free lunch in the government schools, many parents send their children to private schools. Average schoolteacher salaries in private rural schools in some States (about Rs. 4,000 per month) are considerably lower than those in government schools.[34] As a result, the proponents of low-cost private schools critiqu the government schools as being poor value for money.

Children attending the private schools are seen to be at an advantage, forming a discrimination against the weakest sections who are forced to go to government schools. Furthermore, the system has been criticised as catering to the rural elites who are able to afford school fees in a country where a large number of families live in absolute poverty. The act has been criticised as discriminatory for not addressing these issues. Well-known educationist Anil Sadagopal said of the hurriedly drafted act:

It is a fraud on our children. It gives neither free education nor compulsory education. In fact, it only legitimises the present multi-layered, inferior quality school education system where discrimination shall continue to prevail.[29]
Entrepreneur Gurcharan Das noted that 54% of urban children attend private schools, and this rate is growing at 3% per year. "Even the poor children are abandoning the government schools. They are leaving because the teachers are not showing up."[29] However, other researchers have countered the argument by saying that the evidence for higher standard of quality in private schools often disappears when other factors (like family income and parental literacy) are accounted for.