Discuss the ‘Right to Education’ and the concerns raised by it. (2015, 15 Marks)
Universal schooling began as a non-justiciable promise: the original Article 45 set a ten-year target for free education to fourteen. The Supreme Court read education into the right to life in Mohini Jain (1992) and confined it to age fourteen in Unni Krishnan (1993), and the 86th Amendment (2002) made it a Fundamental Right. Amartya Sen‘s capability approach explains why: schooling is a basic capability on which most other freedoms depend.
What the Right Guarantees
- Article 21A: free and compulsory education for children aged six to fourteen; Article 45 was recast for early childhood care, and Article 51A(k) made it a parent’s duty to send the child to school.
- The RTE Act, 2009 (in force 1 April 2010) prescribes neighbourhood schools, no capitation fee or screening, pupil–teacher ratios, qualified teachers, School Management Committees, a bar on corporal punishment and a 25% quota for disadvantaged children in private unaided schools, upheld in Society for Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan (2012).
Concerns Raised
1. Access without retention. Enrolment of six-to-fourteen-year-olds reached 98.1% (ASER 2024), but UDISE+ 2024-25 puts secondary retention at 47.2%. Poverty, child labour, seasonal migration, caste and gender norms still pull the marginalised out.
2. Inputs, not learning. The Act measures buildings and ratios; only about 23% of Class III children in rural government schools could read a Class II text in 2024. Rote pedagogy crowds out skills and critical thinking. No-detention was blamed for promotion without learning; a 2019 amendment let states restore exams in Classes 5 and 8, and the Centre did so for its own schools in December 2024, though detention without remediation shifts the failure onto the child.
3. Teachers, infrastructure, money. About 1.04 lakh single-teacher schools remain, and vacancies and untrained teachers cluster in rural and remote areas. In Anjuman Ishaat-e-Taleem Trust (September 2025) the Court made the Teacher Eligibility Test mandatory even for serving teachers. Many schools still lack usable toilets, drinking water or classrooms, while public spending stays below the 6% of GDP goal of the Kothari Commission and NEP 2020.
4. Equity and design.
- The 25% quota suffers delayed reimbursement and in-school segregation, and subsidises private schooling while government schools decay.
- Pramati (2014) exempted minority schools from the whole Act, so a child’s right depends on who runs the school; the 2025 bench referred that ruling to a larger bench.
- The Act legitimises a multi-tier system rather than the Kothari Commission’s common school.
- The age band omits early childhood and secondary years; NEP 2020 proposes three to eighteen.
Perspectives
Liberals value the justiciable entitlement; Jean Drèze and Sen (An Uncertain Glory, 2013) argue India’s deficit lies in state capacity to deliver quality. From a critical view, a stratified system reproduces the inequality B. R. Ambedkar hoped education would dissolve.
Conclusion
The RTE has largely won the battle of access; the unfinished battle is learning and equality within schooling. Stronger government schools and outcome-based accountability will decide whether Article 21A becomes a real capability.