Six Years of RTE in Uttar Pradesh: Towards a more compassionate and inclusive world

There is a saying doing the rounds these days — everyone is equal before the eyes of the pandemic. The virus unlike our social structure is not sexist, classist, casteist, elitist or communal.

Slow claps for our bourgie indifference, eh?

Is our apathy entirely our fault though? Our social fabric effectuated by the stratified schooling system has only reinforced the precept “Ignorance is bliss”.

What is stratified schooling system?

Our schools can be classified into two categories- Private and Government. (there are further sub-classifications that we are not getting into, to avoid digressing).

Private schools charge a fee for their tuition and ancillary expenses. They have exponentially helped fill the need gap for quality education but in the process they have become representative of the social hierarchies in our society. Due to limited monetary capital, education in these schools remains elusive to a significant stratum of our society.

There are budget private schools that have come up but they haven’t made the classrooms any more inclusive.

Government schools have been known to provide free education to all children. With the passage of RTE in 2009, free and compulsory education became a fundamental right or children aged between 6–14 years old. A significant chunk of the underserved stratum goes to government schools and budget private schools.

Although we have increased access to primary and secondary education[1] the quality of education in government schools is questionably abysmal[2].

The Vicious Cycle

A lot of us are misled into believing that we are where we are solely because of our merit when in-fact affordability determines the quality of education that children will have access to, the kind of education they will have if any, the vocation they will take up and their future prospects.

The lack of quality education ends up creating a reservoir of workforce which the market discards and ends up preferring those with quality private education and better “market employable skills”. This restricts the social mobility of the underprivileged stratum and their future generations.

We invisiblize the struggle of a person from Economically Weaker Section(EWS) and Disadvantaged community who has to paddle twice as hard to reach the same destination. We are not interested enough to cross the bridge to understand anybody’s struggle outside of our class because we have never co-existed with them in same space as equals.

Our stratified classrooms set the premise for the inequality that we see around.

Acknowledging the role of segregated school system in maintaining the unequal social fabric the government introduced Section 12(1)(c)

Section 12(1)(c) of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE) mandates that unaided non- minority private schools set aside at least twenty-five per cent of their entry-level seats for children from economically weaker and disadvantaged sections of society. It envisages to make a more compassionate world where children across classes learn, interact and share interests on a common platform.

RTE is today getting implemented in more than 15 major states today. With Uttar Pradesh which has 30% of the country’s RTE seats in the last six years has seen more than 2 lakh admissions.

Institutional Inequality and the COVID Impact

Our schools are becoming less segregated but our attitudes and mindsets need to follow suit. Inherent biases against EWS and marginalized sections often manifests themselves as discriminatory behavior which can lead to a feeling of alienation.

Despite that in a sample survey conducted by RightWalk Foundaion we found out that more than 80% of the RTE children continued going to private schools.

The pandemic necessitated the much-needed transition to online learning. In terms of access to resources families with higher income are in a much better position to adapt to this new form of learning while it became a struggle for the RTE children. In spite of the zeal to learn, these children got excluded invariably.

Rightwalk Foundation conducted telephonic interview with over 200 RTE parents during May and found out that most of the private schools didn’t have an alternate lesson plan for students without a smartphone/laptop. These children are looking at a school year without any possibility of learning. They might fall behind in terms of learning outcome setting in place a chain of events that will lead to further systemic inequality.

Recommendations and Way Forward

Social Inclusion Score

The implementation & bureaucratic hurdles in RTE, has larger implications especially on the socially disadvantaged community. These can range from Institutional failures like poor infrastructure, pedagogical inadequacies and discrimination, and bias and neglect by teachers towards children from marginalized group thereby creating glass walls styled social barriers.

While social inclusion is an intangible phenomenon, the impact it leaves on education system can be quantified by measuring the performance across the following parameters:

1. Provision of equal opportunities

2. Student segregation practices

3. Social dynamics (interaction between RTE & other parents)

4. Treatment given to RTE students

5. Classroom dynamics (initiatives to boost performance)

6. Social sensitization measures adopted by school

Qualitative and quantitative questionnaires for concerned stakeholders, (Children, Parents, Teachers, Principal and School Management), aimed to generate a social inclusion score-card for each school can help in categorizing & taking corrective measures.

Social Inclusion Training Workshops

Talking alone of a socially inclusive education system would not have an impact; but we must take a step ahead and start making one. There have been very few interventions towards making the private schools inclusive, beyond accessible for EWS and marginalized students.

Teachers in schools have much influence on the behaviour, learning and development of children. Social inclusion training for teachers in private school can help in raising the inclusion bar in these schools. This can be achieved by sensitizing the teachers towards their personal biases, diversity (across students in class) and challenges faced by the students from EWS and disadvantaged communities. The training workshop must also equip the teachers with the pedagogical tools to promote inclusion. Impact of inclusive classrooms is not limited to EWS and disadvantaged students but gets translated into a higher learning curve for students across classes

RightWalk Foundation and students from IIM Calcutta have co-developed a social inclusion toolkit and training curriculum. The objective is to make the private schools a truly safe learning space for students, irrespective of their financial and social background.

Let’s keep our heads held high and our legs knee deep in humility as we find our way towards creating a world order that is more compassionate and inclusive.

After all, the right to live with dignity is everyone’s right, right?

[1] According to U-DISE data, the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in 2016–17 for Grades 1–5 was at 95.1%. The GER for Grades 6–8 was 90.7%.

[2] Only 44.2 per cent class 5 students studying in government schools can read class 2 level text, according to the latest Annual Status of Education (ASER) report 2018

About the authors:

Akanchha is an associate at RightWalk Foundation. A former Gandhi Fellow, she has a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from Lady Shri Ram College For Women, Delhi University.

Bibek is currently a final year MBA student at IIM Calcutta. He is a public policy enthusiast, quizzer, & active social worker with Prayas, IITK and Edelgive foundation.

Yuval is currently a final year MBA student at IIM Calcutta. He has been active social contributor since his undergraduate through SHIKSHA (an NIT KKR initiative) and was associated with Zariya (a ZS Associates Initiative) wherein he taught children from underprivileged community.

Siddharth is a final year MBA Student at IIM Calcutta. He holds a honors degree in Commerce and has been actively associated with social organizations throughout his career.