The History of the Right to Education Act

Speaking to a group of young professionals and interns at the Planning Commission a couple of months ago, at the invitation of my old friend and colleague, Pawan Agarwal, I realised that many of us are unaware of the background to the Right to Education Act.  Why indeed, did Parliament find it necessary to consider making education a Fundamental Right, much before it considered a Right to Food or a Right to Livelihood?  Here’s the full story.

From the earliest times, education in India had always been exclusive; only the Brahmins and some very rich families had opportunities for their children to be educated.  The rest managed by acquiring the skills they needed to earn their livelihood.  It was only towards the end of the nineteenth century, as the Freedom Movement began to pick up momentum, that a demand for mass education began to be articulated.  Among other things, leaders of the time realised that education was a tool that could be used to mobilise the masses, thereby increasing the pressure on the British to consider leaving.  For instance, one of the earliest political steps initiated in Gujarat in the 1920s by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel involved taking over the management of local municipal schools.

The first formal demand for compulsory primary education was raised in 1910 by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who introduced a Bill for the purpose in the Legislative Council, based on Britain’s own Compulsory Education Act of 1870.  Not surprisingly, it saw no progress.  Mahatma Gandhi called for universal primary education in the 1930s; an apocryphal tale says that he was told by the wise men that primary education could only be universalised by imposing a cess on liquor sales, thus forcing him to choose between two deeply held beliefs.  Gandhi, being the man he was, is reported to have retorted that if the only way to educate India’s children was through a cess on liquor revenues, it was better for them to stay uneducated!  His articulation of Nai Talim in 1937 was thus at least partially in response to those who believed that education was not for the masses.

The debates in the Constituent Assembly link the question of education intimately to the very foundation of our democracy.  When the issue of suffrage was debated, one school of thought held that only educated citizens should be allowed to vote.  Nehru, Ambedkar and others differed, holding that it would be unacceptable to fritter away freedom hard won from the British by creating yet another society that differentiated between its citizens.  They believed, and said so forcefully, that every citizen of the fledgling democracy then being fashioned should be treated as an equal, such equality being translated into universal adult suffrage, or the right of every citizen to participate in our democracy.

What a powerful vision of the future our founding fathers had, and what a leap of faith they took!  To be so forward thinking in the late 1940s as to imagine a country in which everyone, high or low, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, could participate in was unbelievably hopeful.  Remember that these were people who had themselves grown up in a country ruled by foreigners, and in a world order that took things like caste and social stratification for granted.  The reach and scope of their forethought is almost dizzying in its audacity.

And yet, though they wished to make education the bedrock of our democracy, sadly they were unable to overcome the constraints of resources.  Despite its best efforts, the sub-committee set up by the Constituent Assembly reluctantly concluded that it would not be possible for the newly independent India to fund universal primary education as a Fundamental Right; as a compromise, the Assembly agreed to include reference to free and compulsory education as a Directive Principle of State Policy in Article 45[1] of the new Constitution.  And in a nod to the importance of this provision, the Article was the only one that came with a time frame of ten years for its implementation.

Unfortunately the time frame of ten years was never respected, and even though an attempt was made to articulate a vision for education through the National Policy on Education in 1968, it remained largely forgotten till the early eighties.  The declaration of a new National Policy on Education in 1986 marked a revival of interest in the subject, and was accompanied by international commitments made in the nineties (Education for All, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, etc), as well as greater civil society and governmental action.

The judiciary also played an important role in steering the country towards a universal right to education.  In the case of Mohini Jain vs State of Karnataka & Ors in 1992, the Supreme Court held that the right to education is concomitant to the right to life, that every citizen had a right to education, and significantly, that the very act of recognition by government of a privately managed institution created an instrument of State that could be used to deliver the obligations of the State.  Reviewing this decision in 1993, the Supreme Court, in the case of J P Unnikrishnan vs State of Andhra Pradesh & Ors, held that the right to education is implicit in and flows from the right to life guaranteed under Art 21, and that every child has a right to free education until she completes the age of 14 years; thereafter her right is circumscribed by the economic capacity of the State.

Both these judgments were significant in bringing about the right to education.  It was as a result of the latter judgment that the Constitution was amended through the Constitution (86^th Amendment) Act of 2002, which introduced a new Article 21A providing that “the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine”.

The Amendment Act also modified the original Article 45, to now provide that “the State shall endeavour to provide early childhood care and education for all children until they complete the age of six years".  And finally, it modified Article 51, to stipulate that it would be a Fundamental Duty of every parent/guardian to provide opportunities for the education of their children/wards.

Unlike other Fundamental Rights in the Constitution however, this one was worded in a manner that made the enactment of a specific legislation essential for its operationalisation (the critical words being “in such manner as the State may, by law, determine”).  Thus it was that several versions of the Central law were drafted and discussed between 2003 and 2009, before the law was finally passed as The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.

So there you have it – the story of the Fundamental Right to Education guaranteed by our Constitution.  A right that is deeply linked to our identity as citizens, and to the quality of our participation in the democracy that is India.

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[1] “The State shall endeavour to provide, within a period of ten years from the commencement of this Constitution, for free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen years.”

Acknowledging The Other Half

In the morning newspaper, I came across this article by my old friend and colleague, Rukmini Banerji of Pratham.  Rukmini makes the very strong case that having addressed the issue of providing access to most children, we need to focus on ensuring that children receive quality education; merely enrolling children in school is obviously only half the job done.  More importantly, all children must receive quality education as part of the Right to Education Act, and not just the ones who go to government schools.

Of the 1.3 million schools in India, only about 300,000 are in the private sector; the rest are run by government.  Yet according to some estimates, these 300,000 schools account for fully 40 percent of all enrolments; the schools themselves range from unrecognised budget schools to very high-end premium schools.  Clearly, the non-government sector accounts for a very significant chunk of the total child population.

Rukmini’s argument is a simple one – in a country where such large numbers of children attend schools managed by agencies other than government, can we afford to focus only on the needs of only those who attend government schools?  This is why the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) brought out by Pratham makes it a point to survey children at home and not in the classroom, so that as many children as possible can be covered, whether enrolled in any school or not, whether attending or not.  On the other hand, the NCERT’s Assessment Survey (NAS) includes only children enrolled in and attending government and aided schools.  Naturally, the results of both surveys are vastly different.

But the point of this piece is not to get into the debate about survey results or methodology.  Rukmini’s article set me thinking about the way education, particularly at school level, is viewed by the political establishment.  I decided therefore, to take a closer look at the manifestos of the major political parties to understand their respective positions.

Not surprisingly, I found a singular lack of vision or understanding across the board.  Almost all the manifestos repeat tired old clichés about generally strengthening the education system, revamping the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) scheme, universalising secondary education or improving skills development, without providing any details.  And only the Grand Old Party talks about a possible role for the private sector, committing itself to “exploring possible partnerships with the private sector in the delivery of education”.  Perhaps because they remember that the 12^th Five Year Plan categorically states that “...private providers (including NGOs and nonprofits) can play an important role in elementary education.  Their legitimate role in expanding elementary education needs to be recognised and a flexible approach needs to be adopted to encourage them to invest in the sector”.

The other major party, which released its manifesto yesterday, promises to increase budgetary allocations to 6 percent of GDP (a long standing demand of activists), but makes no mention of the private sector at all.  And for the rest, the fact that nearly half the children in this country attend a school under private (including NGO) management is clearly not good enough reason to improve the environment in which they function.  Indeed, two of them – the Party-Not-On-The-The-Right, and it’s competitor, the newest entrant into electoral politics – actually talk about increasing supervision and control over private schools, as if things weren’t bad enough already!

In many ways, this is a reflection of the way in which education has been viewed within the establishment all these years.  In a reaction to the opening up of the economy post-1992 and the acceptance of international aid for funding the District Primary Education Programme (and similar projects in the States), the education establishment moved to the far left, arguing that it was the sole responsibility of government not only to regulate and supervise, but also to deliver education services to its citizens.  This position has hardened further in recent years, even as growth of the economy resulted in the creation of a middle class with increased aspirations for their children that caused them to move away from poorly performing government schools to private ones that were more accountable.  Even the judiciary has succumbed to the persuasion of this argument, holding in innumerable judgments that private schools have little or no entitlements at all.  The result has been increasingly stringent regulation and the imposition of unreasonable standards and rules, all leading to increased rent collection at various levels, but little actual improvement on the ground.

The trouble is that the so-called private sector in education is mostly disorganised and disunited, as is normal when agencies are in competition with each other and not colluding.  In such circumstances, they lack a strong enough voice that would enable their concerns to be heard.  But does this mean that parents who choose to send their children to these schools – and indeed, the children themselves, all 120 million of them – also have no rights and can be ignored?

The school education landscape today has been divided into two distinct camps – the ‘us’ and ‘them’ of the government and non-government sectors, which allows government policies or national bodies like NCERT to target only children enrolled in the former.  In turn, this is mirrored in the manner in which policy is decided, with decisions affecting private schools taken with almost no contribution from them.

As we look forward to the formation of a new government at the Centre, this is an opportune moment to consider the manner in which we would like to heal the school sector, and get both the government and private agencies to work together.  The country urgently needs a vision for education that enables rather than restricts, treats the private sector as an equal partner, and leads to the fulfilment of every child’s right to quality education.  Indeed, this would be a good time for the new government to articulate a national education policy, given that the last one was published in 1986 (and amended in 1992).

The manner in which the new government addresses the problems of school education, and in particular, the privately managed parts of the sector, will also be an instance of resolving that classic dilemma of modern democracy – how do you conduct majority rule while protecting the rights of the minority.  In education, as in other sectors, the question before the new government will be one of safeguarding those rights, while “avoiding the tyranny of the majority[1]”.  Sadly, I do not see that vision in any of the manifestos I’ve read so far.

Disclaimer – It is not my intention to express a preference or otherwise for any of the parties contesting the elections; this blog post does not endorse any candidate or party for the ongoing General Elections.

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[1] John Adams

To Sir (or Ma'am) With Love

What does it say about a country where only 2 percent of 750,000 teachers holding a formal Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) degree or a Diploma in Education are able to clear a simple Teacher Eligibility Test that would make them eligible to teach Grades 1 through 8?  Where the results for this year are actually viewed as an improvement over last year, because there was a reduction in those who failed from 99 percent to 98?  Would you really have any hope for that country's education system, or for the future of its children? 

Welcome to India in 2014.  The fact that CBSE's Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) held in January witnessed such dismal results should be a wakeup call for anyone interested in the country's education system. 

As the number of schools in the country, both in the government and private sectors, has increased rapidly over the last decades, the demand for quality teachers has increased exponentially.  Unfortunately, the number and type of teachers needed are just not available.  Implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (more commonly known as the Right to Education Act) alone requires an estimated 1.4 million additional teachers in our classrooms, for just Grades 1 to 8; this doesn’t include the already existing 500,000 vacant positions.  And the teacher training institutes currently available are just not up to the task.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that with the exception of B.El.Ed degree courses or some correspondence courses, most of our regular B.Ed or D.Ed programmes are of one year duration, as compared to other countries where such programmes take at least 3-4 years to complete.  This means that the student's knowledge of her subject is assumed, and the course concentrates – in the limited time it has – on the skills required to be a teacher in the classroom.  Given the reality of most undergraduate degree colleges in the country, this assumption is dangerous, as in many cases graduation is no guarantee of either understanding or knowledge of the subject.  The poor state of higher education thus has its impact on school education, which in turn sends poorly prepared children (from those who remain in the system) to participate in college education, thereby reinforcing the vicious cycle of mediocrity and ineffectiveness.  The situation is compounded by the fact that anyone with a secondary school education is also eligible to sit for the CTET, as long as they have completed, or are in the final year of, a 2-year D.Ed or 4-year B.El.Ed programme; in the former case, there is clearly not enough time to acquire the required subject knowledge.

While there has been much discussion of school education and learning outcomes in recent years, teacher education has not been the focus of that discussion as often as it should have been.  We need to recognise that the teacher is a crucial component of the school system, and that without providing a renewed sense of professionalism, education and self worth to those who take up teaching as a career, we will be hard pressed to make progress in the classroom.  It is time to reinvent teacher education and indeed, teaching as a career, from the ground up, if we are to witness dramatic change in learning outcomes.

The majority of school teachers in India are employed in the government sector, since nearly 85 percent schools are under government management.  Yet it is not as if the issue of quality is confined only to this group.  With few exceptions, most private schools also suffer from the same problems.  During the time that I ran the premium Millennium schools, it never failed to surprise me that senior teachers (and sometimes even Principals!) could be so careless, sloppy and unprofessional.  I sat through a number of classes in various schools, and came away appalled at the fact that teachers of this standard were actually allowed to stand up in class and influence young minds.

What then do we need to do to bring about meaningful change?  There are several possibilities, but the following would probably be good first steps:

·         There is a strong case for partially decentralising teacher education to the States, and allowing them to determine the curriculum and duration of the B.Ed courses conducted in their jurisdictions.  This would allow more contextually relevant degree courses to develop, with training colleges free to create a cadre of teachers focused on the needs of their State.

·         The duration of B.Ed courses needs to increase, in line with international practice, and in order to incorporate some subject learning as well.  This would ensure that students graduating from the programme would also carry with them the much needed subject skills.

·         Under training teachers need more practical exposure to classrooms and children, in order to develop their teaching and management skills.  This means a much closer relationship between schools and colleges and/or teacher education institutions.

·         The number of teacher training institutions needs to increase drastically; at the same time, ensuring quality remains a strong concern.  We need to review the multi-zillion clearances needed to start such institutions and move towards a system of single-window approvals.

·         As in any other profession, intensive periodic in-service training programmes need to be planned that allow teachers to hone their skills and revise basics; as in the US, we may eventually consider a licensing system and periodic examinations that keep valid a teacher's license to teach.  It may be noted that the kind of superficial 20-day in-service training practiced under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) certainly does not meet the needs of continuing education for teachers.

·         We need to find ways to reduce the social and economic distance between teacher and taught; this means more emphasis on recruiting local teachers, who come from the community they teach. This would additionally have the advantage of ensuring more or less regular availability of the teacher in the classroom; if she belongs to the area, there are fewer incentives for her to go AWOL.

·         Bring back the school inspectorate system that we have systematically destroyed through projects and disuse.  The Schools Inspector played a very significant role in ensuring that quality in the classroom was maintained; we need to recreate a similar system of regular monitoring to ensure enough time-on-task as well as improvements in outcomes.

·         Stop just talking about closer linkages between the District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET) and SSA structures and actually do something about them.  In addition, project structures like SSA need to eventually move into the State Education Departments so that there is greater ownership of the education bureaucracy, and a single, holistic approach to school education.

·         Move away from seniority as the only criteria for promotion and career advancement to a system that takes merit and performance into account, and make teaching an attractive profession for bright young people.

Teachers are the backbone of the education system; if they are dysfunctional, so is the system.  The time to make these changes is now.  Otherwise we will see many more anguished letters like this one – http://goo.gl/gjqh66.  To me, this is a heart-breaking example of everything that is wrong with our schools and teachers.

Assessments - Clearing the Exam

Over the last few years, there have been increased calls for more stringent assessments of learning outcomes, notwithstanding the elimination of conventionally understood examinations thanks to the decisions to do away with Board examinations in Classes 8 and 10; the former because of the RIght of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, the latter thanks to the CBSE imperative to reduce pressure on school children.  Like much else about our education system, the few national assessments carried out so far reveal contrary results - while the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) carried out by Pratham with the help of volunteers and other NGOs has consistently indicated falling levels of learning, NCERT's own studies seem to contradict this data; the former's survey shows that despite increased government spending on education, more than half of Class 5 children unable to read a simple Class 2 text, while the latter in its most recent report claims that two out of three children in Class 3 were able to correctly answer grade appropriate questions.  And the performance of the two historically most advanced States in PISA 2012 was nothing short of dismal.

On the other hand, a couple of weeks ago, there were reports of Class 12 children in UP who committed, or attempted to commit, suicide because they were unable to pay the bribes demanded by their respective Principals (no less!) to allow them to cheat in the exam.  The cases of teacher-assisted cheating in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and other cities in the US have already been documented; in every case where teacher performance or compensation were linked to student performance, there was a strong incentive for those teachers to "help" their students do well in assessment tests.

In principle, it is hard to argue with the need for outcome measurement; at the end of the day, what gets measured, gets done.  In a recent article, Prof Lant Pritchett and Gulzar Natarajan argue for different types of measurement reports, depending on the end user of the information (see http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/one-report-card-is-not-enough).  The trick lies in calibrating systems to ensure that while they provide an  accurate picture of our children's achievements, they don't end up either discouraging everyone, or lend themselves to gaming.

Ideally, we need to find a method of low stakes testing that serves as a diagnostic tool, enabling teachers and administrators to take corrective steps well in time; paraphrasing Robert Stake, we need more tasting of the soup during preparation, i.e., more formative assessments.  This means a middle path between the extremes of the high stakes testing of the No Child Left Behind Act in the US and the no-tests-at-all philosophy of the Sudbury Schools.

What should worry us all is the fact that learning levels are consistent across school managements; regardless of whether a school is run by the government or a private entity, learning outcomes seem to be uniformly poor.  The difference, as Prof Kartik Muralidharan of the University of San Diego has shown, is that private schools achieve these poor results at about one-third the government rate because their input costs are much lower!  Clearly it is time to more beyond the public vs private school debate to look at the best way to help our children learn.

A country that claims to be on the verge of benefitting from the demographic dividend needs to make greater effort to ensure that all its young get an equal opportunity to participate in building the nation.