Kerala pushes back against SC's RTE distance norms amid declining school enrolments

The Supreme Court’s directive on Tuesday (November 25) asking the Kerala government to ensure that every lower primary (LP) school is located within a one-km radius and every upper primary (UP) school within two km has triggered a sharp response from the state’s Education Department, reigniting a long-standing debate on whether national frameworks on schooling sufficiently accommodate Kerala’s unique educational landscape.

Malappuram municipality petition

The order came while disposing of a petition related to the rejection of a proposal to establish a new LP school in Elambra under the Malappuram municipal limits. The municipality had argued that the neighbourhood lacked adequate access to an LP institution, but a state-level assessment found that no child in the area was being denied access to schooling under existing facilities. Despite that, the court held that the distance norms prescribed under the Right to Education Act must be upheld.

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While the directive aligns with RTE standards framed at the national level, the Kerala government has expressed concern that a uniform rule cannot be mechanically applied to states with vastly different educational ecosystems.

Kerala defends schooling model

Education Minister V Sivankutty said on Wednesday (November 26) that the state will examine the judgement closely, but insisted that Kerala’s schooling density, demographic shifts, and infrastructural saturation must be understood before any mandated expansion of schools is considered.

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“We respect the court, but Kerala cannot be viewed through the same lens as states where children still walk kilometres without finding a school. Our school network is among the best in the country. Starting new schools simply to satisfy distance norms, without any real need, will not help the education system,” he said.

Falling birth rates, shrinking enrolments

Kerala has historically maintained one of the highest school densities in India, a fact acknowledged even in central surveys. However, the minister emphasised that this density has developed organically over decades through a mix of government and aided schools, and that any forced expansion comes at a time when the state is grappling with falling birth rates and shrinking enrolment numbers.

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“What we need are stronger existing schools, not a proliferation of institutions without students. Even today, many LP schools run with 20 or 25 children in total. We are exploring the possibility of a review petition,” he added, noting that administrative flexibility is crucial for a state with declining student populations.

The order attracted sharper critique from many left-leaning commentators and educationalists. Some of them even called the order a “Delhi-centric framing” of education policy.

Kerala’s aided-school system

“The directive that Kerala must open an LP school every one km and a UP school every two km comes from viewing Kerala through the conditions of the cow-belt states. The Right to Education Act was drafted without fully considering the educational advances in South Indian states. In Bihar or Uttar Pradesh, where a child may walk kilometres without finding a school, these norms may help. But in Kerala, even in tribal areas where access is hard, education is not denied because of school shortage,” opined NE Meghanad, retired bureaucrat and social commentator. He further pointed to the role of aided schools, an institutional model unique in scale to Kerala’s education landscape.

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“No other state has an aided-school system like ours. Managements appoint both teaching and non-teaching staff, often taking bribes, yet salaries are paid from the state treasury. There is no locality in Kerala without either a government or an aided school. So who will fund these new schools, who will pay the staff, and more importantly, where will the students come from in a state with rapidly-declining birth rates?” he questioned.

According to the data presented in the Kerala Assembly in 2024, the state has 6,817 lower primary schools, 3,037 upper primary schools, and 2,790 high schools in the combined government and aided sectors. The same dataset shows that around 36 per cent of these schools are government-run, about 55.5 per cent are aided, and the remaining institutions fall in the unaided category.

Decades of unmet demands

However, supporters of the demand for a government school at Elambra in Malappuram district view the issue differently. They say this reflects decades of neglect by successive governments, whether LDF or UDF, in a region with a significant minority population.

“People here have been asking for a primary school for 40 years. Both LDF and UDF ruled the state many times, yet nothing changed. In 2017, the villagers approached the High Court and received a favourable order. The government then challenged it in the Supreme Court. The money spent on these legal battles would have been enough to start the school,” said C Dawood, Shoora member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Kerala, and the Managing Editor of MediaOne TV.

Falling enrolments strain planning

The Education Department officials note that Kerala’s network of schools was designed not merely on distance but on a combination of catchment demographics, geography, transportation access, and the presence of aided institutions that historically filled local gaps long before the RTE norms existed. While states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, or Madhya Pradesh struggle with severe school shortages, often lacking even basic infrastructure, Kerala’s challenge lies at the opposite end -- too many schools for a shrinking student base.

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According to government data, the state has experienced a dramatic fall in annual birth rates, leading to an increasingly smaller cohort of school-age children. Many LP schools have seen enrollments drop to levels that question their long-term viability. Despite this, the RTE Act mandates school establishment primarily based on distance criteria, an approach that education planners in Kerala have long argued does not apply neatly to southern states where saturation is already high.

“This is not a state where children drop out because they cannot reach a school,” a senior official said. “If anything, our focus is on consolidating and upgrading schools, improving teacher training, and technology integration. Mandating new schools without students diverts scarce resources.”

Need for state-level flexibility

The Elambra case has thus become a wider flashpoint in an ongoing Centre-state policy mismatch. The Malappuram municipality had submitted that a new LP school was essential for the locality, but the state’s scientific survey found that all children there already had access to schooling without hardship. The government rejected the proposal based on this audit, which then led to litigation.

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The petition, though local in scope, now carries implications that stretch across Kerala. Education experts warn that if school creation becomes compulsory simply to meet distance-based norms, Kerala may be forced to divert funds from improving quality to opening low-demand institutions. The minister repeated that Kerala will respond legally, if necessary, to ensure that planning authority remains with the state.

As the state prepares its formal response, the debate has sharpened the broader question of whether the Right to Education’s structural norms require state-level flexibility.