Fee rows, Aadhaar hurdles or lack of will: What ails RTE implementation?

For schools, the biggest hurdle is the question of reimbursement. While the government is to provide compensation to schools for the 25 per cent EWS seats, many administrators say there are several gaps here.

Reimbursement row

An official of the West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights told The Federal the schools are objecting to the method of calculating the reimbursement amount. The government doesn't take into account all the relevant costs, such as electricity and uniforms, the official said.

Andhra Pradesh Private Schools Association president Pratap Reddy said that while the state government is pressuring students to enroll in schools under the RTE, the reimbursement due to the private schools is not addressed. The fee being reimbursed is very low and not paid on time, he told The Federal.

Also read: Education for all, but only on paper: 15 years of Right to Education

"Providing education to underprivileged children is never a no," said Jyoti Arora, Principal of Mount Abu Public School in Delhi. "But the reimbursement is not in line with what we spend on each child under the EWS category. So, our plea is — just to raise the reimbursement amount a little.”

“The second most important concern is buying books and uniforms from outside. The government should ensure that the benefit goes directly to the beneficiary (parents), like in Uttar Pradesh. It saves both sides (schools and parents) from unnecessary hassles,” she told The Federal.

However, educators point out that schools often use reimbursement as an excuse to deprive children of education under RTE. “Private schools make their money by charging general category students heavily. Those on DDA (Delhi Development Authority) land have to pay rent at just Rs 1 per month per acre. Why do they even need this reimbursement money?” asked Delhi Parents’ Association President Aparajita Gautam.

Aadhaar hurdle

Another hurdle is paperwork. A status report titled “Implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009: Where do we stand”, released by the Right to Education Cell (RTE Cell) and the Council for Social Development (CSD) of New Delhi last November, cited the State of Aadhaar Report, 2019, on this point.

“From a sample of 1,67,077 respondents...about 13 per cent of school-age children had faced delays in enrolment due to their inability to provide Aadhaar. About one-fourth could not enroll in schools due to Aadhaar-related reasons,” it said.

“And, this was despite the Supreme Court judgment made in 2018, which prohibited service providers such as schools from demanding Aadhaar documents to grant admission,” it added.

Minority issue

Another issue cropped up when, in 2012, through an amendment, minority institutions were exempted from the RTE Act. This led to several private schools going for the minority tag.

According to a 2021 report by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), there were 653 minority schools in 2000-04, which grew to 4,550 in 2010-14.

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This was particularly noticeable in states like Karnataka, where even some Delhi Public School (DPS) branches applied for a minority certificate. However, according to advocate Ashok Aggarwal, it remains a relatively insignificant issue.

“We saw this issue in some states, where private schools rush to get a minority certificate despite not having religious or linguistic minorities. But even now, a majority of schools are within the ambit of RTE,” he asserted.

While administrators claim such issues pose a problem, educators point to larger issues. The biggest being government expenditure on education.

'Why not extend to Class 12?'

The 2024 CSD-RTE Cell mooted a substantial increase in government spend on education. “Since the time of the Kothari Commission report, it has been recommended that government spending on education should be 6 per cent of GDP," it said.

"In 2007-08, the combined spending by the Union and state governments was 3.7 per cent of GDP. By 2009-10, the Union government’s education budget was 0.76 per cent of GDP, after which there has only been a decline. By 2021-22, Union spending had dropped to 0.34 per cent of GDP and, for the year 2024-25, it stands at 0.37 per cent.”

There are also demands that RTE should cover classes up to 12. “The problem is that these schools remove (RTE) children after Class 8. The law should be amended and the scheme extended till Class 12 so that students who enter the system through RTE can study until Class 12,” said Aggarwal.

Also read: Skyrocketing private school fees biting hard into wallets of TN parents

“Why is EWS not being extended till Class 12? Is a Class 8 education sufficient? If it is, then the government should declare the posts for which it will accept that qualification,” said Gautam.

Beyond EWS quota

According to Anita Rampal, the discourse around RTE gets limited to the economic background of the students.

“We have to think about the curriculum. What kind of education are we imparting? The RTE Act says education should be imparted through exploration and discovery. It should fully develop the child's confidence and ability to air her opinions freely. This is equally relevant, be it a private school or a government school,” she told The Federal.

“If it's not giving them that learning environment, if it's not engaging children of different backgrounds, giving an inclusive participatory forum, a classroom, a site of learning, then what is the point of doing some tests and asking them to spew out some information? That’s not what the RTE is saying,” Rampal stressed.

Subversion of RTE

Rampal further said corporate groups and NGOs have subverted the RTE, viewing it solely through the lens of “learning outcomes”.

“These neo-liberal groups have focused on outcomes, trying to dismantle and throw away the RTE. That has weakened the whole spirit of RTE, which was meant to be pro-children, including diverse children, ensuring that all children get a good quality education. They only assess the social advantage — whether children have tutors or books. It’s not really assessing the child's learning,” she said.

The 2024 report by the CDS-RTE Cell said it is important to "assess, investigate, and move beyond the idea of the EWS quota". “The time has come to rethink and create a common schooling system that will move beyond any hierarchy and be inclusive in all forms from the beginning. A common school system will be the best way to achieve the RTE goals,” it said.

(With inputs from Samir K Purkayastha in Kolkata and Jinka Nagaraju in Hyderabad.)