The Hindu Business Line : Right to Education Bill, 2009: Will it help all Indians make the grade?

The only people to whom the Bill gives hope are private players. Only, since there is no profit to be made from India’s poor, most of their ventures will concentrate on the upper classes.

Much has been said on the new Right to Education Bill to be tabled in Parliament in the current session. Mr Kapil Sibal, the new Government’s Human Resource Development Minister, has been diligently publicising the salient features of the Bill. But what can citizens expect if the Bill becomes an Act?

For those households with incomes below the official poverty line, the only hope for a future lies in education and resultant empowerment.

According to the Government’s own data, such households account for 27.5 per cent of India’s one billion-plus population. Independent research and CRY’s own experience shows that the number of poor in India is closer to 70 per cent — those for whom day-to-day incomes barely cover living expenses.

For this majority of Indians, the Constitutional Amendment in 2001 came with the promise that this liberal democracy will actually assume responsibility for all its citizens. The current Bill, which makes this Constitutional right legal, is conspicuously silent on increasing the State outlay for Government schooling.

Instead, it shifts the responsibility of ‘poor students’ to private schools (the 25 per cent reservation clause), which have in the past raised objections to such a proposal.

Instead of the equitable education based on mutual dignity that the Amendment envisaged, such a provision shuts out the poor as a class and further deepens class barriers. Also, following on the lines of the Constitutional Amendment, the Bill limits its ambit to children between the ages of 6 and 14.

As any parent or teacher will agree, education up to Class V11I is hardly enough to equip a child with the basic skills needed either for gainful employment or even to make an individual equipped to function with a basic degree of self-reliance and empowerment.

After all, this is the right to education Bill, and not the right to literacy and numeracy alone. By limiting free education between Classes 1 and 8, we are offering low educational standards to all children, a decision that impacts the poorest badly.

This selection of the 6-14 age group is arbitrary and actively countermands the country’s promise to its children, of making education available, accessible and acceptable.

The only people to whom the Bill gives hope are private players. Powered by a change in the socialist Government’s conscious step of keeping core sectors such as the country’s defence and education out of the liberalisation drive, the Minister has boldly announced that the Government is looking to make revenue for itself and for the private sector by making a commodity of education.

If the Bill is passed, both global and Indian companies can hope to diversify into school and college education. Only, since there is no profit to be made from India’s poor, most such ventures will concentrate on the upper classes.

USP to be quality education

But we forget. Quality in education is actually the Central Government’s forte. IITs and IIMs — whose products are widely known to give global engineers and MBAs a run for their money — are both Government institutions.

The Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas, a considerable portion of whose alumnus go on to become the country’s best leaders, policy makers and professionals, are all government institutions. So Mr Sibal’s ‘quality’ argument actually does not stand the test of reality.

Latest government estimates show 70 million children are out of school. This category largely comes from India’s poorest — those who cannot and should not be forced to pay for schooling.

Estimates show that the private education sector is valued at $40 billion (Rs 160,000 crore) in India. The HRD Ministry needs to get Section 25 of the Companies Act amended for this.

Is 3 per cent of GDP enough?

The world’s most developed economies, such as the US, the UK and France allocate 6-7 per cent of their national budgets on public education and health. India by contrast, allocates just 3 per cent for education and around 1 per cent for health.

When we made education a Constitutional right, at par with the right to life, it hardly befitted the spirit of the Constitution to take such a minimalist approach to child rights. The 2009-2010 Budget ratifies the minimalist approach, by not increasing the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan allocation (it remains, as in the previous year, at Rs 13,100 crore).

To make any real impact on children’s lives, the country needs to spend at least 10 per cent of GDP on school education and health. Currently, the spending on schooling is 1.28 per cent (the total government outlay is 3.3 per cent) of GDP. Instead of investing public resources, we, as a country, are opening up a core sector to private players — a move that goes against both the short- and long- term interests of children.

But the Right to Education Bill is not all bad. It mandates school management committees to take charge of neighbourhood schools. It speaks of a common board that will do away with the differential educational standards in the country.

It takes the first step in doing away with the “tuitions culture” that has created an unexpected cottage industry in equipping students for exams. Not to mention the serious strains it places on family budgets that are forced to bear double costs in educating their children.

Thus, even as possible problems are flagged, looking at the overall initiative one cannot but feel that there is hope.

The need of the hour, then, is to gear up to face the possible fallouts, fill the gaps, and make sure quality education is available for all.

(The author is Director-West, CRY — Child Rights and You. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)