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Can right to education become right to quality education?

Apr 29, 2024 12:45 PM IST

This article is authored by Amar Patnaik, former Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha.

Unlocking India's demographic dividend hinges upon equipping our youth with quality education that imparts relevant learning and skills. Despite well-intentioned policies like the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009, our education system has fallen short of delivering quality learning outcomes for our children. Recognising this, the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP)--an overhaul of India's education framework--proposes a comprehensive reform to address these shortcomings.

Right to education (HT File) PREMIUM
Right to education (HT File)

When the RTE Act was enacted 15 years ago, a significant challenge for our education system was the lack of access to quality education for India's children. The RTE Act addressed this by focusing on universalising elementary education nationwide. Many states mandated setting up neighbourhood primary schools at every one kilometre. Consequently, India saw an expanded school network and achieved near-universal enrolment in primary grades. But even this access came at a cost. The RTE Act faced numerous challenges in enforcing compliance with its infrastructural norms such as toilets and drinking water facilities, mid-day meals and pupil-teacher ratio. Some studies revealed that even a decade after the RTE's implementation, only 13% of our schools were fully compliant. Smaller schools in particular struggled to meet mandates such as having one classroom per teacher, a library, a playground, and a separate school head’s office. The schools that hired more teachers to fulfil the pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) requirements slipped down on other parameters. It is evident that input-centric requirements overlooked issues of limited state capacity, raised compliance costs, and hindered school operations. Meanwhile, regular surveys like the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) showed no significant gains in student learning outcomes, which remained persistently low for over a decade.

India urgently requires a radical overhaul of its education priorities. The prevailing focus on inputs must be reversed, prioritising accountability for student learning attainment. The state education departments are overburdened with the dual function of regulating the education sector as well as operating their schools, with their regulatory role taking away focus from the delivery of good education in government schools. To resolve this, states urgently require an independent regulatory body overseeing all schools, both government and private. Such an entity must operate autonomously, separate from the education department, ensuring effective oversight and enhancing the quality of education across all schools.

The State School Standards Authority, or SSSA, has been tasked with shifting the emphasis to learning outcomes. The NEP rightly recommends a competency-based state-wide diagnostic State Assessment Survey (SAS) in every school: A test to be administered to students but without any consequences for or comparative reporting on them. Instead, it will measure the school’s quality in ensuring the learning of those students. For best governance outcomes, the results of this assessment should be used not only for reporting their quality but also for guiding the improvement of their learning standards. Needless to say, all this should be done with a transparent public disclosure and wide dissemination of information about the performance and quality of each school in the state.

Given that parents currently don’t know much about the learning quality delivered by schools, overcoming this information asymmetry will enable students and parents to make informed decisions thereby making schools accountable to their demands. Currently, in the absence of such deep systemic awareness, school-family communications remain superficial and lack meaningful discourse around student learning. This simple demand generation for quality can drive wide-ranging improvements in school administration, admission marketing, and the teaching-learning processes. Empowered parents can also become involved parents, as seen in the community-led 5T High School Transformation Programme in Odisha, where a group of alumni parents came together to act and ensure high-quality learning for students.

Despite SSSA’s potential, the sluggish pace at which states are establishing this body raises pertinent questions. Where exactly is SSSA amidst four years of the NEP’s clarion call, and why is the hesitation in its formation despite the evident need for change?

RTE was an important initiative for expanding the outreach of the education ecosystem. With the Gross Enrolment Ratio nearing 99% up to 8th grade, that purpose is served. There is a need for the framework to expand and shift its focus to student learning. Odisha’s high school transformation example demonstrated that solutions emerge naturally if there is political will to set student learning attainment as the primary goal. To trigger more such reforms, an obsession with student learning must be the very principle of school governance and regulation all across the country.

If we are truly serious about securing the future of India's children, then this legislative overhaul, however complex, can no longer be deferred. The time to act is now, for tomorrow's progress depends on the education we provide today. The central government must amend the RTE Act, and so should the state governments similarly review their dedicated Acts and Rules to make their schools outcomes-oriented rather than solely focusing on RTE input norm compliances.

This article is authored by Amar Patnaik, former Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha.

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