ANNIE NAMALA//The Right to Education Act-2009 was constructed especially to enable private schools get that opportunity to receive recognition or government accreditation. Under this Private School Policy, schools were given three years to start this process. Which, personally, I believe is a fairly solid amount of time. I believe private schools should have taken initiatives to set the ball rolling by now. Available statistics, however, paint a different picture. One can not simply blame a state government for delays in Act implementations. Acts have a policy framework under which all implementation work has to be performed—and one of those step includes private schools seeking government recognition. On its part, the state and central governments can only extend the period of the which has been granted to non-recognised private schools to start the process of getting accreditation. While we are talking about this Act, what we need to keep in mind is not the number of people employed with these schools or which entrepreneurs are running these schools. What is cardinal here is the question of growth and development of students who are in this school. Norms that govern the recognition policy have some significance attached to it. For example, think of a classroom with 35 students, you need a minimum classroom size where the children can sit, move around and engage with each other creatively. You also need ventilation. Playgrounds are also important for the holistic development of students. However, it is debatable whether most schools in urbane areas meet these requirements. Circulars have been sent from the HRD Ministry to school managements to provide some sort of a playground to their students. If school managements have problems in keeping their standards up to mark, then it is fair enough that they come under scrutiny. Because no child deserves to be cooped up like chicken, neither do the chicken. Having said that, I believe it is only fair that government schools also fall under the purview of the RTE Act. Because, at the end, the Act is for the children of this country, be it from private or government schools. But—as is evident—no such steps are being taken by the government-run schools. By the government’s own estimation only around 4 to 5 per cent of government schools follow all the nine rules that have been laid down in the Act. There, clearly, a huge difference between the excepted and actual circumstances. The government needs a road map as to how and when its own indicators will fall in line. The difference between a government set-up and a private set-up is that there is some level of monitoring and tracking at the government system, while the private sector lacks the monitoring completely. Civil society organisations also monitor government institutions but there is no such scrutiny for privately-run institutions. So, it becomes especially important that private schools are regulated—otherwise no one else would bother about them. However, that does not mean that the government is let off-the-hook. They should themselves be accountable to the norms, which is why after the RTE Act, we see that a flurry of activities have started; like recruitment, training and even institutional trainings, are happening everywhere. To say that enough is being done will be making a factually incorrect statement, given that millions of children are moving to higher grades while schools that they go to do not provide adequate facilities and learning and/or lack proper infrastructure. They will never get back their stolen childhood. This is why instead of doing away with the RTE Act, policymakers, academics and civil society members wish the Act to encompass children till the age of 18 to fall under it. There was some amount of planning in the government circles to expand the RTE Act till Class X. Personally, I believe that it should extend to children in the 12th standard as well. However, we also understand that the initial target (14 years) is where we need to start. Because this is the time when children need maximum care—to survive, to become better individuals. This is the time when quality education leaves the maximum impact as it is the most vulnerable period. Other than taking care of the financial issues, the society also needs to deal with administrative gaps in our education system which is divided into secondary and higher secondary education. My larger concern remains for children who do not go to schools—children of migrants, minorities and those from tribal backgrounds. Minority groups face larger problems especially if they come from a particular social background or caste. In addition to accessibility, they face an additional challenge of not being able to identify with the education that is being imparted. Hence the major task in front of the government is to understand how it can provide quality education to all. It is indeed a challenge—because the system does not recognise their needs. Dominant classes and elite groups are already creating a huge divide in the society by exploiting groups coming from less privileged backgrounds. How much more can you extract from them? One will have to focus on the large mainstream population, the group to which these children belong to, in order to narrow the population dividend. The main challenge for the government is how it will it change the mindset of the people towards these children. How will it mold the syllabus to suit the needs of these children and how will it provide them with life skills so that they can hope for a better future. There are various distinctions in the private schools: private-aided, private minority aided, private unaided. The private minority aided schools have been let off-the-hook and they don't have to make the 25 per cent reservation for the underprivileged kids. That just leaves the private unaided (elite) schools to reserve seats under the clause, as aided schools are already mandated to provide the reservations. The children even, are divided into two groups: economically weaker and disadvantaged (those belonging to the schedule castes and schedule tribes). To many it may come off as charity and or a benefit to disadvantaged sections but I don’t see it as that, I see it as an awareness created in all sections of the society regarding the issues. Because it the elite society that makes policies, market decisions and these sections do not know anything about the disadvantaged sections. The elite classes also feel that they would be providing knowledge to the weaker sections but how can this be the case when they barely understand the other classes. There are many things we can learn from the minorities if we give them enough space to rise up in the society. The main challenge is how we create a mindset that will allow us to co-operate and co-exist symbiotically.