by Parth Shah.
One major initiative of the Indian government, in
field of education, was the Right to Education Act of 2009. This
act has major problems, as has been argued by numerous observers and
experts in the field. This Act focuses on the interests of incumbent
public sector education providers, instead of focusing on the
interests of children and parents. It is focused on inputs into the
educational process, regardless of the outcomes which are coming
out. It penalises private schools that have weaknesses on
inputs, regardless of the fact that these schools often induce
better learning outcomes when compared with public
schools.
At the same time, the translation of the Act into benign or malign
outcomes critically hinges on the Rules under the Act, which are
notified by State governments. Thus, now that Parliament has chosen to
enact the RTE Act, the critical frontier that matters is how state
governments choose.
In recent weeks, Gujarat notified its
for the implementation of the Right to Education Act (RTE)
2009. It has introduced some of the most innovative ideas for
recognition of existing private unaided schools. The Committee in
charge of drafting the Rules in Gujarat, that was headed by the former
Chief Secretary Mr.Sudhir Mankad, has broken new ground in
understanding the policy issues faced in education in India today.
Instead of focusing only on input requirements specified in the Act
like classroom size, playground, and teacher-student ratio, the
Gujarat RTE Rules put greater emphasis on learning outcomes of
students in the recognition norms. Appendix 1 of the Gujarat Rules is
the one which has a path breaking formulation for recognition of a
school: this will be a weighted average of four measures:
- Student learning outcomes (absolute levels): weight 30%
- Using standardised tests, student learning levels focussing on
learning (not just rote) will be measured through an independent
assessment. - Student learning outcomes (improvement compared to the school's
past performance): weight 40% - This component is
introduced to ensure that schools do not show a better result in
(1) simply by not admitting weak students. The effect of school
performance looking good simply because of students coming from
well-to-do backgrounds is also automatically addressed by this
measure. Only in the first year, this measure will not be
available and the weightage should be distributed among the other
parameters. - Inputs (including facilities, teacher qualifications): weight
15% - Student non-academic outcomes (co-curricular and sports,
personality and values) and parent feedback: weight 15% - Student outcomes in non-academic areas as well as feedback
from a random sample of parents should be used to determine this
parameter. Standardised survey tools giving weightage to cultural
activities, sports, art should be developed. The parent feedback
should cover a random sample of at least 20 parents across classes
and be compiled.
This is one of the first times in India's history that public
policy has focused on children and parents, instead of focusing on
the public sector producers of education services.
Furthermore, the Gujarat RTE Rules have taken a more nuanced and
flexible approach in other areas too. For instance, both class size
and teacher-student ratio have not been defined in absolute terms, but
in relative terms. The required classroom size is 300 sq feet but in
case classrooms are smaller, then instead of re-building them, the
Rules allow for a way to accommodate that with a different
teacher-student ratio. The formula is: Teacher Student ratio = (Area
of the classroom in sq feet-60)/8. This approach not only allows
smaller classrooms to exist but also gives schools a more efficient
way to manage physical infrastructure.
If a private school is unable to meet recognition norms, then the
RTE Act de-recognises the school and forces it to close down. This
sudden forced closure would create serious problems for the students
and parents who would have to find a new school in the
neighbourhood. The Gujarat Rules allow for the State to takeover the
school, or transfer management to a third party, and create a genuine
possibility for the school to continue and meet the norms. This, once
again, shows the focus of the Gujarat Rules upon the interests of
students and parents.
This approach is significantly better to that of the other states
where recognition norms are based solely on input requirements and
that are also rigid (like playground, classroom size and
teacher-student ratio). The Gujarat approach recognises the
substantial contribution made by budget private schools in urban and
semi-urban areas where land and buildings are very expensive.
Actually many government schools themselves would not be able to meet
the rigid input norms that RTE has mandated.
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