The 7 year itch of RTE: Time to call it quits.

7 years since the Right to Education act came into being, it is now clear that it has done little to improve the learning levels of students of India. No surprise, because the intent of the act was not to improve learning but to improve enrolments. What's more interesting is that when the Act came into being, enrolments in our country were already 96%! So, the Act was actually trying to solve a problem that didn't exist!!

India did not need another law to fix its education problem. It just needed its 1 million Govt. schools to work well. There are enough schools in India, but not enough good ones. In fact, there are too many small ones - with single teacher schools, the shining example of a school in name, without any learning happening. How can there be, if there are 60 students belonging to 6 different classes but taught by just one teacher?

What did RTE do? While there were several provisions of the act that asked the Govt to improve infrastructure of its schools, improve the teacher student ratio, ensure 1 school in 1km radius of a settlement, the only part of the act that has got all the attention and focus, is the 25% reservation of seats for EWS students in Private Unaided, Non minority schools. It was a disingenuous attempt at education equity. In spirit, it wanted to afford the disadvantaged section, a shot at getting good education but in reality it was an admission, that the Govt school system had failed. It was a surrendering of arms.

Even if we evaluate RTE through the narrow prism of the 25% reservation, it is an unmitigated disaster. Here are 3 reasons:

1. It is discriminatory. All schools run by Christian missionaries, Muslim organizations, Sikh organizations, or linguistic minorities such as Gujaratis in Mumbai are exempted from the 25% reservation requirement. It is as if, the Supreme Court is saying that these religions or communities do not have economically disadvantaged students. Or we are saying that in a secular country, we should go back to the British deceit of Morley Minto reforms!

2. It is not implementable. Due to the sheer size of the number of Private Unaided schools (around 200,000) and our stretched and slow bureaucracy, it is almost impossible to match the cadence of annual academic calendars of schools with the requirement of sifting through thousands of applications and matching them with available schools. No wonder that RTE admissions have been often delayed, controversial and disruptive for both students and schools.

3. It has become a big rent seeking mechanism. In a country like India that is beset with petty corruption, any act that puts power in the hands of the Govt. official, is bound to become a rent seeking mechanism. There are multiple tales of parents getting fake EWS certificates to get the RTE seat. There are tales of Education officers, selling RTE seats in prestigious schools. What is worse, for those schools who have RTE students, Govt officials ask for a 5% to 20% cut in their RTE re-imbursements. How much would Vigilance department cover? Why give so much power to Govt officials if all it does is perpetuate petty corruption?

The solution:

1. De-regulate Private Unaided schools - For an education entrepreneur who wants to offer good quality education to students in India for a fee, without any aid from the Govt., there should be minimum regulation. The only requirement from the school should be student performance in standardised testing. The rest should be left to a contract between the fee paying parent and the education providing school.

2. Have a separate National Board for Private Unaided Schools - The over regulated and bureaucratic central boards and state boards are best suited for Govt schools, municipal schools, Central schools and Private aided schools because these are public services offered with Govt. money. Private Unaided schools should be subjected to light touch requirements such as Class 10 and Class 12 external examinations based on nationally aligned learning outcomes. Beyond that, they need to have autonomy to bring in innovative pedagogy, curriculum and best practices. For this, they need a National Board that understands the unique context of Private Unaided schools.

3. Improve Govt. schools. For all the noise around Private unaided schools, they still make up a small number in India (less than 20%). The big behemoth is still the Govt. school system. Without urgent and deep reform in how they are run, we will not be able to make a material impact on student learning levels. We need to move it away from a political issue to an administrative and academic execution issue.

• Teachers need to be empowered with good curriculum and made accountable. 
• Single teacher schools need to be consolidated into bigger schools that can have all the resources and correct teacher student ratio. 
• Public Private Partnerships need to be pursued with urgency so that best practices can be brought to these schools. 

Distributing blankets, bicycles or tablets will not solve the education problem in Govt. schools. Deep structural reform combined with empowering Govt school teachers will. And there is no time to lose.

RTE has lost. We need to ditch it. But our students can still win. For that, we need to move fast.