The Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act was passed in August 2009 — a momentous decision, if decades too late. Since last April, when it started functioning, the state has been required, by law, to provide a neighbourhood school that meets a minimum standard within three years. The act mandates a whole range of measures to upgrade the number and quality of schools, like specified teacher-student ratios, making sure teachers attain a nationally designated level of qualification within five years, and local school-management committees to oversee the implementation.
However, a year on, RTE remains riddled with problems. Only 11 states have created a commission for child protection, the grievance redress mechanism that makes the act meaningful. Many key features of the act have been adopted in varying degrees — these include the the non-detention policy, which 27 states have embraced, 28 states have banned corporal punishment, and 26 have scrapped the board examination. These changes are relatively easy to enact. But other provisions have been harder to push through. Education being a concurrent subject, there needs to be a more sensible apportioning of responsibility between the Centre and states. So far, the question of schooling has been largely handled by states, which are trying to adjust to the sudden largesse and rules foisted by the Centre. The three core issues of elementary education are access, retention and quality, with access being the least of the problems by now. Now, with this expansive national legislation and the promise of 65 per cent funding from the Centre, states do not have the same initiative. What's more, they have entirely different experiences of school education, and the management structures prescribed by the RTE run counter to their existing arrangements. A state like Kerala, for instance, is ahead of the RTE, and finds many of its provisions besides the point. In states like Maharashtra, many community-run schools, missionary schools, etc, have objected to the monitoring by local bodies, asking why the panchayat should be involved in decisions when it did not help create the school, and have sought amendments.
As it irons out the last wrinkles in RTE, the Centre must avoid the homogenising impulse, and adopt a light touch, rather than micro-managing elementary education.
