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Section 19 and the Schedule of the Right to Free & Compulsory Education (aka RTE) Act, 2009 mandates that all schools had to comply with several infrastructure provision norms, teacher-pupil ratios and other requirements by March 31, 2013 — three years after the RTE Act came into force. Since then, according to one estimate, government authorities have served notice on, and/or have closed down unaided private schools in 17 states for not complying with the stipulated norms. The latest case in point is a show cause notice issued by local education authorities to 35 private schools, which have been declared illegal for non-compliance with the mandated RTE parameters, in a major city of Maharashtra.
Attempts by education authorities to close down non-compliant private schools can be defended if all, or at least most government schools within their jurisdiction had become compliant with the mandated norms by March 31, 2013. Yet according to official statistics reported in the DISE School Report Cards for 2012-13, a mere 7 percent of state and local government schools provided just seven of the ten stipulated infrastructure facilities — school building, drinking water, separate toilet for girls, boundary wall, etc — and the mandated teacher-pupil ratios.
The only good news is that there’s been some progress in improving infrastructure and recruitment of teachers last year. In Maharashtra for example, 9 percent of state and local government schools made provision for all ten infrastructure facilities in 2012-13. The number has appreciably increased to 29 percent in 2013-14.
It needs to be noted that this improvement in provision pertains only to the physical infrastructure mandated for every school. In addition to the ten infrastructure facilities, the Schedule of the RTE Act stipulates that every school should maintain certain teacher-pupil ratios, have at least one teacher for science and mathematics, social studies and languages, and part-time instructors for art education, health and physical education.
Shockingly, despite full support and funding from the Central, State and local governments, the great majority of government schools in almost every state are not even partially RTE-compliant. Indeed, it can safely be asserted that only a fraction of the government schools in the country are at present fully RTE-compliant, and aspirations of reaching this goal even by 2030 are fanciful. Against this dismal condition of government schools, it’s ironical that state and local governments are threatening to close, or have already closed down non-compliant private schools.
Although there’s no reliable evidence of how widespread school closures are, one report indicates that 2,500 schools have been closed down and that an additional 4,500-15,000 schools face threat of closure.
Since non-compliant, private unaided schools enroll millions of poor and rich students, the Centre and state governments need to issue official guidelines to clarify this issue. Meanwhile the situation is going from bad to worse as the RTE Act specifies that after March 2013, appropriate authorities can de-recognise all non-compliant private schools, and impose heavy fines if they continue to operate after de-recognition. Without a Central and/or state government policy intervention, many more arbitrary school closures and increasing bribery and corruption cases can be expected, as state and local government officials brandish the Damoclean sword of RTE non-compliance over unaided private schools.
Against this backdrop, there’s an urgent need for the Central government which drafted the RTE Act, to revisit the issue of de-recognition of private schools under Sec.19, and the larger issue of the norms and standards listed in the RTE Act. Do all schools need to have ramps, as listed in the Schedule of the RTE Act? Moreover, it doesn’t mention compulsory provision of electricity, and given that only half the schools in India are provided with electricity connections, shouldn’t a revised Schedule mandate its universal provision? And finally, a distinction needs to be made between what is essential and what’s desirable, in terms of infrastructure facilities and teacher requirements.
In any government initiative to revise s.19 and the Schedule of the RTE Act, the issue of deadlines also needs to be re-considered. What should be done with private as well as government schools which default on deadlines? And given that states are primarily responsible for implementation of the Act, and the reality that there’s a huge difference between high and low performing states, should state governments not be encouraged to set their own deadlines and target dates?
Revision of the RTE norms and standards should simultaneously focus on improving dismal learning outcomes in government schools. The immediate challenge is for every state to devise a School Report Card for principals and education administrators, which categorises schools on learning environments and outcomes, to monitor the health of the school system. These initiatives would significantly contribute to realising the lofty and laudable goal of the RTE Act of providing good quality elementary education for all children in India.
(John Kurrien is director emeritus, Centre For Learning Resources, Pune)