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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Miles to go on the RTE roadmap-Shireen Vakil Miller

The judgment last week by the Supreme Court, making it mandatory for the government, local authorities and private schools to reserve 25% of their seats for the economically weaker sections, is one more step in making the right to education a reality for Indian children. The road, however, is long and the journey arduous, as there are still millions who face barriers in accessing education.

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) was enacted in 2009 to ensure that all children of India between 6-14, regardless of their economic status, caste, class or gender, would be given an elementary education by right and by law. In addition, the Act made some time-bound commitments, to ensure schools achieve certain minimum standards of quality, many of them culminating on April 1, 2013. 

April 1, 2012, marked two years since the notification of this historic Act. The National RTEForum, which is a coalition of over 10,000 NGOs and organizations working on RTE, held a convention last week to take stock of the progress. While all states, with the exception of Karnataka and Goa, have notified the Act, movement on several vital fronts has been slow. 

Millions of children- the most marginalized and the most disadvantaged such as child labourers, street and migrant children, those in conflict-affected areas and the disabled - are still out of school. According to an estimate, there are 28 million child labourers in India. Since these kids are working, they are clearly not in the classrooms. Considering the widespread nature of conflict in 180 districts across the country, the number of children affected by wars could be in the millions. The National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) estimates that 40,000 children in seven districts of Chhattisgarh alone are out of school. The numbers of children out of school on account of conflict could run into several hundred thousand. Delhi alone has 51,000 street children - most of them denied their right to education. 

Although RTE still has some significant gaps, for instance neglecting the age group 3-6, it nevertheless has many strong points. If implemented in its true spirit of ensuring a neighbourhood school of an acceptable standard of quality, it would go a long way in ensuring that all children get equal opportunity in education. However, what we find in India today, unfortunately, is an education system that promotes inequality, with excellent schools for the rich, and bad schools for the poor. Even within government schools, there is a multi-tiered system with Kendriya Vidyalayas at the top end and MCD schools at the bottom. Many states don't have grievance redressal mechanisms, and even where they exist, the rate of disposal of complaints is not very high. According to an answer provided to a Lok Sabha question recently, of the 2,215 complaints that the NCPCR received until November last year, only 110 were disposed of. 

The financing of RTE remains a big issue. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee put aside only Rs 25, 555 crore for 2012-13 for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, which falls way short of the recommended financial requirement of Rs 1.82 lakh crore. The single largest area of spending tends to be on teacher salaries, followed by infrastructure. This doesn't, however, ensure quality of teachers or proper infrastructure. 

RTE mandates a 30:1 pupil teacher ratio - i.e. classes should have no more than 30 children, and that there should be one teacher for every 30 children. However, ASER 2011 data shows that about 60% of all primary schools fail to meet this critical criterion. In states like Assam, Kerala and Manipur, despite the sanctioning of teacher posts, no teachers have been hired, according to an answer provided to a LS question in November last year. 

In Bihar, although there has been an increase in teacher recruitment, the pupil-teacher ratio norm is routinely ignored, with many primary schools having as many as 80 children in a class. These teachers tend to be untrained as well. Bihar and UP lead the charge with over one lakh untrained teachers. 

The RTE Act promises a neighbourhood school for each child which provides quality education. This also implies making available good educational support and an environment in which children do not experience discrimination. In essence, the concept should mean that all children in a neighbourhood - no matter whether their fathers are doctors, cleaners or farmers - should go to the same school, and that all schools should have trained teachers, classrooms, toilets, books and learning materials for all. Only then would all of India's children have an equal opportunity to quality education. The RTE has infused new hope into them. Let us not fail them.

The writer is director for advocacy and policy, Save the Children