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Summary Recommendations
Achievements in the past three years have been 1. Implement a clear roadmap to ensure compliance of
meaningful. Enrolment at the primary level is reaching 100 RTE norms on infrastructure and teachers training.
per cent among girls and boys. Transition rates from primary 2. Allocate adequate resources for the effective
to upper primary have increased overall, and among girls implementation of the act.
specifically. Tens of thousands of schools have been built,
3. Establish a comprehensive grievance redressal
more teachers appointed, and more schools equipped with
system that links all levels, from School Management
toilets for girls, as well as drinking water facilities.
Committees (SMCs) to the National Commission for
Despite these successes, the Right to Education Forums Protection of Child Rights.
Stocktaking Report 2013 shows that progress on the ground 4. Promote bottom-up planning at school level and build
has not lived up to expectations.1 As the country passes capacities of SMCs.
the three-year deadline for meeting basic infrastructure 5. Address discrimination against vulnerable children
requirements, the number of schools that comply with all girls, socially excluded groups and children with
RTE norms has not progressed much beyond the 4.8 per disability.
cent figure of 2010 recent media reports mention 8 per
cent.2 Furthermore, efforts and funds have focused on Genesis of the act
developing school infrastructures, while issues pertaining
to quality have been neglected. Many states have resorted As early as 1950, the Directive Principles of State Policy,
to quick fixes instead of addressing systemic weaknesses part IV of the Constitution, called on the government to
of the education system: the training of teachers has been achieve childrens right to education within a timeline of 10
neglected, and the growing practice of appointing para- years. However, the constitutional promise has remained
teachers on short-term contracts aggravates the problem. unfulfilled for decades. Indias public education system
Learning outcomes reflect these shortfalls: more than half failed to provide quality education and social inclusion.
of the children in class five have learning outcomes at least The Global Monitoring Report 2012 ranks India a low 102
three grade levels below their actual grade.3 out of the 120 countries on the Education for All (EFA)
Development Index, based on progress related to universal
The year 2013 marks the failure to achieve the first milestone primary education, adult literacy, gender parity and the
for the implementation of the act. The next milestone in quality of education.4
2015 will be another unfulfilled promise if the government
fails to demonstrate its political will by adopting a set of In 2002, following concerted civil society mobilization and
concrete steps. interventions by the Supreme Court, Article 21A on the right
to education was inserted in the Constitution, as part of
the right to life. In April 2010, the Right of Children to Free such as continuous evaluation and instruction in the
and Compulsory Education Act came into effect. The law mother tongue, has been even slower.
compelled the government to provide free education to Another loophole is the failure to address the issue of
children aged 6 to 14 years, but left children above and out-of-school children. The absence of a homogenous
below this age group outside its purview. It also failed to definition and the lack of an effective mapping and
address the fundamental structural inequalities in the tracking system translate in diverging data: according
education system, retaining different tracks of schooling to official government estimates for the year 2010,
for the rich and the poor. 27 lakh children are out-of-school. In contrast, the
Provisions such as the prohibition of discrimination, Ministry of Human Resource and Development estimated
instruction in the mother tongue, and the implementation their number at 160 lakh;12 and the National Sample
of continuous and comprehensive evaluation were to come Survey Organization counted 49.8 lakh child labourers.13
into force immediately. Standards of school infrastructure Interventions to integrate these children are inadequate.
were to be met within three years and teachers adequately The absence of clear operational guidelines that
trained within five years. The country has missed the first lay down modalities of implementation at the local
milestone on 31 March 2013; reaching the 2015-milestone level is among the causes for this situation. Local
on teachers training will require urgent interventions at administrations are left to interpret guidelines of
unprecedented scales. implementation. The lack of coordination between
state and central administrations and among relevant
Implement a clear roadmap to ensure departments Education, Tribal Affairs, Labour, Women
compliance of RTE norms on infrastructure and Child Development, and Social Justice is another
and teachers training challenge. Moreover, authorities have failed to monitor
Since the RTE act came into force, 0.4 lakh schools the implementation of the act no more than one in
were constructed;5 7 lakh additional teachers were two schools were inspected during the past year.14
recruited; 5 lakh toilets were built and 0.3 lakh drinking A concrete roadmap is needed to achieve the goals
water facilities set up.6 that were missed on 1 April 2013 and plan for the 2015
While significant, these figures are inadequate deadline. Centre and state governments should agree
considering the gaps. According to provisional data on a clear framework that lays down modalities of
from the District Information System for Education for implementation, and is backed by robust monitoring,
the year 2012, about one-thirds of schools still do not accountability mechanisms and adequate funding.
have functional toilets for girls, about half of them
have ramps for children with disability, playgrounds, Allocate adequate resources for the
or kitchen sheds for the midday meal;7 5 per cent of effective implementation of the RTE
households simply do not have a school within walking
Allocations towards the RTE fall short of the
distance of 1 km.8 The percentage of schools that
requirements. Overall public expenditures for
comply with all RTE norms on infrastructure and teacher
education, at less than 3.5 per cent of GDP,15 is much
availability was 4.8 in 2010,9 and has increased to 8 per
below the 6 per cent figure committed in subsequent
cent according to recent media reports.10 At current
National Education Policies.
rates, it would take another 60 years to ensure that all
schools are RTE compliant. Financing the implementation of the act has been
a cause of tension between central and states
Under-staffing and poor training of teachers is
governments. In the absence of adequate and stable
particularly worrisome. Across the country, 41 per cent
resources, authorities have often resorted to ad
of primary schools do not meet the prescribed Pupil-
hoc financial means. To a large extent, the central
Teacher Ratio (PTR) of 30:1 in primary classes and 35:1
government has relied on an education cess that was
in upper primary classes; this figure is as high as about
originally meant to cover additional expenses. State
78 and 88 per cent in Delhi and Bihar.11 About one in four
governments, which do not have access to such
teachers lack basic qualifications, and the percentage
alternative resources, have repeatedly claimed that
of professionally qualified and regular teachers has
they lack the required resources.
reduced in 10 states including Jharkhand, Assam,
Punjab. The permission to continue hiring unqualified Additional allocations should back a coherent
teachers in the absence of training infrastructure that distribution of financial burdens between state and
was granted to 13 states, including the populous states central governments. At the same time, bottlenecks
of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, such as delayed disbursement and shortage of finance
may further undermine their limited efforts ahead staff need to be addressed: the percentage of overall
of the 2015 deadlines. The tendency of appointing allocations that was spent under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
teachers on short-term contracts also contributes (SSA), the flagship programme that has channelled
to undermining long-term efforts to build a qualified most funds for the implementation of the act, was only
faculty. The implementation of less tangible provisions, 61 per cent in 2011, less than in the previous year.16
This brief was written by: Shyam Singh, Research Coordinator; Anjela Taneja, Programme Coordinator Education; Lucy
Dubochet, Research Manager; with contributions from Sanjay Suman and Shirin Naseem, Programme Officers Essential
Services.
Oxfam India July 2013.
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