Reforms Needed Post RTE in India

POV by Shashank Shukla

Of the nearly 200 million children in the age group between 6 and 14 years, more than half do not complete eight years of elementary education; they either never enroll or they drop out of schools. Of those who do complete eight years of schooling, the achievement levels of a large percentage, in language and mathematics, is unacceptably low. It is no wonder that a majority of the excluded and non-achievers come from the most deprived sections of society -- Dalits, Other Backward Classes, tribals, women, Muslims and financially backward - precisely those who are supposed to be empowered through education.

With heightened political consciousness among the deprived and marginalized, never in the history of India has the demand for inclusive education been as fervent as today. Yet, even a cursory examination of the Act shows some glaring shortcomings.

• As a signatory to the United Nations Child Rights Convention, India has accepted the international definition of a child as someone under the age of 18 years. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, covers only children in the age group between 6 and 14, clearly excluding and violating the rights of the 0-6 and 14 to 18 year olds. This problem can be traced to the 86th Amendment and its Article 21A, which defines the age. It is imperative that the 86th Amendment should have been re-amended to correct this anomaly, but it was not done.
• The basic aspect of access is the provision of a school in the proximity of a child, since there are still several areas in the country where such access is lacking. The Act envisages that each child must have access to a neighborhood school within three years of the Act coming into force. The presence of a nearby school, however, does not guarantee that a child will have access to it. One of the key barriers, particularly for the poor and the deprived, is the issue of cost.
• That is where one of the critical aspects of Article 21A comes into play, namely, the State shall provide 'free' education. Normally, 'free' is interpreted as non-payment of fees by the parents of the child. But numerous studies have concluded that the fee constitutes only one of the components of educational expenditure. And since the landless, poor and socially deprived cannot meet the other expenses, it results in the non-participation of their children in education. These other expenses differ from place to place, but the cost of uniforms, notebooks and textbooks are perhaps common. The government needs to focus on the boarder definition of fee including all other expenses relating to education. Also an aspect to be considered is how does “Free” education translate towards private schools and what will be the mechanism to implement the same?
• Sustained participation in schooling is, however, equally influenced by the quality of access. The high non-retention rates (drop-out rates)  in spite of higher enrolments in recent years are a clear indication that concerns of quality cannot be postponed till access is guaranteed, as also by the increasing tendency to seek out questionable private schools perceiving their quality to be 'better'.
• An increasing number of parents, both urban and rural, despite great financial difficulties, are attracted to the option of purchasing education from profit-making private schools that seem to have external frills of quality and regular presence of teachers.The Act tries to address the problem by invoking a minimum infrastructural quality in schools through a mandatory schedule which lays down minimum norms for availability of classrooms, libraries, teaching-learning materials, separate toilets for boys and girls, drinking water and playgrounds. The schedule also mandates a minimum pupil-teacher ratio, number of hours of teaching per week and for the year. The Act explicitly requires the pupil-teacher ratio to be maintained in each school, rather than as an average over a block or a district, which allows for a great deal of skewedness in the placement of teachers between towns and remote areas.
• While this provision addresses issues of infrastructure, it creates another problem i.e. there are thousands of private schools which cater to millions of children in India. These schools offer quality education at low cost but may not necessarily fulfill all the infrastructure norms laid down by the RTE. As per RTE all such schools will be illegal in 3 years which raises a serious concern as to the future of the kids enrolled in these schools. Instead of closure and de-recognition, a grading system of school with infrastructure as a parameter would have served the purpose more adequately.
• The most difficult part of the Act to implement will be the provision for appointing teachers, on the basis of national norms, to be determined by a national agency within five years of its notification. Given the shortage of trained teachers and weaknesses of existing teacher training pedagogies, state governments will have to look at alternate teacher training mechanisms like “Teach For India” as a source for highly motivated and quality teachers.
• The bill calls on all unaided like International schools and special schools like the Kendriya and the Navodaya Vidyalayas to admit 25 per cent children at class 1 level from among the deprived sections of society from their neighborhoods for free education till class 8. Their expense would be remitted to the school by the concerned government at its per learner cost or the cost the school charges, whichever is less. In addition, no school can charge capitation fees and will be punished if they do so, nor can it use any admission procedure like interviewing children or parents, except using a random method. While the intent of the act is good and is probably applicable to government schools and low income schools, it may not be appropriate in high end private schools. The 25% children in an elitist school would undergo a reverse social exclusion and not inclusion as envisaged by the act and would undergo mental trauma because of their social status among their much wealthier peers. This particular aspect of the act needs re-examination considering that it may be better to restrict this to government schools or low income schools.
• The Act makes an important departure in the definition of the term 'compulsory', as provided in Article 21A governing fundamental rights. The customary definition is to place the onus on parents to ensure that they admit their children in schools, and to provide for punishment of parents in case they fail to do so. One argument in favour of this provision is that this should prevent parents from engaging their children in child labour. The Act, however, takes a completely different view and squarely puts the compulsion on governments to provide for every child to complete eight years of compulsory schooling. This implies that if a child is on the streets, working in a shop, or is simply at home at a time when he/she ought to be in school, the responsibility is of the government and it is the government that ought to be punished. This has major implications regarding child labour. Now that it has been enacted, it will be illegal for a child to not be in school during school hours, which curbs all forms of child labour during those hours.
• However, the Act is silent on what the child should do after and before school hours. Similarly, it does not specify which person/agency will be legally culpable if a child is working and not in school. This is where the legislation is at its weakest, in the matter of enforcement. It provides that in case of a complaint regarding the violation of any of its provisions, it will first go to the local authority. The problem is that the complaint will be decided upon by the very agency that is responsible for the purported violation. Though the Act does invoke the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights and the state commissions as authorities to look into complaints, they are all distant from the sites of the complaint, normally a village.
• The Act does not explicitly spell out the quantum of punishment for violations -- be it for denying admissions or violating the provisions regarding quality of access, teacher attendance and so on. For example, the Act explicitly says that admission cannot be denied for the lack of a birth certificate, transfer certificate or for seeking admission after the session has started. But who will monitor that? Will the local authorities hear the parents?
• Lastly, this is a center driven scheme and our history of central schemes show political compulsions override social obligations, hence either the central governments fail to allocate funds or the state governments do not spend it. There need to be adequate safeguards in place to ensure proper fund allocation and usage for RTE.