RTE’s budget schools blindspot

With the passage of time as the fine print of the historic Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (aka RTE Act), which became law on April 1, is beginning to be interpreted, awareness is dawning that it will impact educators, parents, teachers, students and various segments of Indian school (classes I-VIII) education differently. In particular, a closer reading of the RTE Act indicates that it severely restricts the scope of private education entrepreneurs or ‘edupreneurs to operate primary schools, especially low-cost private schools unknown to the affluent elite and government.For instance, s.19 of the RTE Act stipulates that when a school established before the commencement of this Act does not fulfill the norms and standards specified in the schedule to the Act, it should take steps to fulfill them within a period of three years from the commencement of the Act. The norms and standards stipulated in the schedule include minimum salaries for teachers and infrastructure facilities such as playgrounds and libraries. These stipulations are likely to hit the countrys estimated 200,000 budget private schools serving 20 million children, very hard. These schools, charging monthly tuition fees of Rs.70-150 in rural areas, and upto Rs.350 in metros, cannot levy higher tuition fees. Many of them are located in unplanned colonies (slums) inhabited by low-income households. Budget private schools, recognised or not by gover-nment, are economic alter-natives for parents who cannot afford the tuition fees of established/recognised private schools, but dont want to send their children to government schools. Such institutions will find it impossible to meet the norms and standards specified in the schedule of the RTE Act. This will lead to large scale closures, which would hit low-income household students hard. In the circumstances low-budget private schools may be obliged to transform into supplementary tuition centres or private academies rather than deal with the bureaucratic wrangles engendered by the process of seeking recognition. A conservative estimate of unrecognised budget private schools in Delhi is 2,000 with each school catering to around 200 children and employing 20 teachers and staff. The two norms that these schools will find toughest to meet are built-up floor area and teachers salaries. According to RTE Act norms, private primary schools need to have a minimum 800 sq. metres of built-up area and pay teachers on a par with government schools in which the entry level monthly remuneration as per the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations is Rs.23,000. Private budget schools fear these conditions of recognition will create rent-seeking (bribe demands) opportunities for government officials. The manager of one school in Delhi, who had obtained government recognition under the earlier norms when the built-up area require-ment was 200 sq. metres, claims he had to pay a bribe of Rs.80,000 to Municipal Corporation of Delhi officials to obtain recognition. Moreover while he charges tuition fees of Rs.250 per child, in his books he is obliged to show Rs.500 to enable him to demonstrate capacity to pay teachers (fictitious) high salaries. Clearly budget schools exist and…