Right to Education Act: Universalisation or Entrenched Exclusion?

Abstract

Right to Education (RTE) Act is intended to provide free and compulsory elementary education to all children aged 6–14 years. This article examines key constituents of elementary education in view of the RTE Act such as current attendance rate, types of institutions, medium of instruction, neighbourhood schools, Monthly per capita expenditure on elementary education (MPCEE)and incentives during pre- and post-RTE period using National Sample Survey Organisation’s 64th (2007–2008) and 71st (2014) round of unit level data. The result shows that far from the universalisation, exclusion is getting entrenched across gender, sector, and socio-religious and economic groups. Female children, children from deprived socio-religious groups, rural areas and from the bottom MPCE quintile have not only fared lower in most of the studied parameters during the pre-RTE period, but the gap from their counterpart has widened immensely during the post-RTE period. Free education has declined and monthly per capita expenditure on elementary education has increased sharply. Children are moving out of the government to private schools. The findings raise serious questions on the intention of the government to fulfil its mandate under RTE.

Keywords

RTE Act elementary education exclusion free and compulsory education NSSO

Introduction

On 26th August 2009, the Government of India enacted ‘The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act’ (hereafter, Right to Education [RTE] Act). The Act in Article 3(1), Chapter II makes a provision that ‘every child of the age of six to fourteen years shall have a right to free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood school until completion of elementary education’. This was not the first attempt to universalise elementary education in India.¹

Directive Principles of State Policy (1950), Kothari Commission (1966), National Policy on Education (1986), Shri Unni krishnan Judgement (1993), Midday Meal Scheme (1995) and Education Ministers’ Resolve (1998) to universalise elementary education in mission mode, universalisation of elementary education (UEE) mission under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, etc. have been attempted in this regard. Though these attempts have improved the enrolment, universalisation still remains a distant dream.

India’s attempts at universalisation of elementary education (UEE) date back to pre-independence period and led to its inclusion under the Directive Principles of State Policy in the constitution under Article 45 in 1950.The failure to achieve the targets set in five year plans and several flagship programmes led to the brazen shifting of the target of UEE year after year. However, the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act 2002, which resulted in the RTE Act in 2009, recognised elementary education as a fundamental right for the first time. It was considered to be a watershed moment in the history of UEE as it provided the necessary legal teeth to the several state-run extant programmes on universalising elementary education in India.

Along with the legal framework, the RTE Act introduced several radical measures: For the first time, it laid down the parameters of what a regular school of minimum quality must be. Thus, the basic requirements of infrastructure, teacher qualification and curriculum design, and classroom transaction (including evaluation: continuous and comprehensive evaluation [CCE]) have been enunciated in the Act (Bhatty, 2014). Article 16 of the Act made a provision of no detention policy which ensured that ‘children in a school shall not be held back in any class or expelled from school until the completion of elementary education’.²

Recently, this section of no detention has been amended by Parliament.

The Act also banned corporal punishment in any form. However, the most radical clause put into the Act was Article 12 1(C) which mandates reservation of at least 25 per cent seats for socially and economically disadvantaged at the entry level of the non-minority private-unaided schools (Sarin et al., 2018) whose expenditure will be reimbursed by the State. It, thus, ensured that the private schools also must take the responsibility of fulfilling this larger social goal. The Act also made a provision of providing ‘neighbourhood schools’ within 1 km walking distance for children in classes I to V and within 3 km for those in classes VI to VIII.

Notwithstanding these reformatory measures as envisaged by the State, the Act draws vehement criticism both on its provisions as well as issues related to its implementation. Kaushal (2012) notes that although the RTE Act has brought hope to school children, there is a striking inequality in elementary education both in quality and quantity thereby causing disparities in its access across location, economic category, social group and gender. Another school of thought prefers to call the Act ‘right to schooling’ but not education claiming that too much attention has been paid to ‘infrastructure’ as opposed to ‘learning’ parameters (Bhatty, 2014). However, Krishnan, Sekhar, Teja, and Swamy (2017) in their paper observe that schools, teachers, enrolment, pupils–teachers ratio, student–classroom ratio and other facilities pre-RTE Act days were better than in post-RTE Act period indicating that the Act is neither ensuring the ‘right to education’ nor the ‘right to schooling’. The RTE Act, they claim, encouraged multiplier and unequal education structure rather than the Common School System (CSS). The provision to reimburse the cost of education for critical sections of children in private-unaided schools has been placed with no time frame (Jha & Parvati, 2010; Nawani, 2017). More than half of the states and union territories have not implemented this provision and those that have implemented show considerable gaps (Sarin et al., 2018).

Despite having made elementary education a fundamental right for all children, nearly 19 per cent of children in the age group 6–17 years are still out of school in India (Planning Commission, 2011). In the lack of universal access, elementary education in India faces multiple forms of exclusion which often work together leading to more discrimination. Key exclusionary factors emanate from the socio-religious background, income, gender and sector (rural and urban).

Along with income inequality, there is spatial segregation of the rich from the middle class and the poor implying that children are going to different kinds and differently endowed schools (Ramachandran, 2014). With the cost of schooling often associated with quality, the private sector has been reinforcing economic and social inequalities and weakening the support of public schooling by the more privileged (Nambissan, 2012). Most challenging factors are the sociocultural ones such as caste and religion of a child which act as a deterrent to his/her access to school education (Mishra, 2014). Studies reveal that Hindu-Scheduled Caste (SC), Hindu-Scheduled Caste (ST) and Muslims significantly lag behind the higher caste Hindus in terms of educational participation and educational achievement (Basant, 2012; Desai & Kulkarni, 2008). Muslim parents are less ambitious in nature regarding the education of their children (Bhalotra & Zamora, 2010). There are a number of such studies which have shown rampant socio-religious exclusion in the access to education in India (Bhatla, 2017; Drèze, 2003; Ramachandran, 2004; Subrahmanian & Balagopalan, 2003; Subramanyam & Sekhar, 2010; Veerbhadranaika, Sampath, Shivali, & Vasavi, 2012).

Gender induces further exclusion as more girls than boys are in the disadvantaged position when it comes to elementary schooling. Social background puts girls in multiple disadvantaged situations. Poor, SC and ST girls often end up going to a low-quality single-room, single-teacher school. Even if they are mainstreamed in school with better physical and academic facilities, they achieve less than the other households (Duraisamy, 2004; Velaskar, 2005). Not only social status, the economic background also influences a girl’s schooling. The chance of a girl child being in school depends on the decision of her parents and their financial capacities. It is also seen that the son is usually given precedence than the daughter in the choice of schooling. Even after the passage of RTE, girls remain more likely to be excluded than the boys, whatsoever their social origin or economic status.

Considerable differences also exist between rural and urban areas in children’s education. Rural children are late starters in school as compared to their urban counterparts, possibly because urban children tend to live nearer to schools than rural children (Govinda & Bandhopadhyay, 2008). Irregular attendance, high dropouts and non-completion of school education particularly in rural areas can be traced to socio-economic condition, caste, class and gender inequalities. Rural and urban disparities may also occur in terms of location. For instance, living in a distantly located home within rural areas considerably diminishes the children’s ability to go to school.

The RTE Act envisages UEE for children from 6 to 14 years. Most critics raised doubts over it. However, the criticism of RTE Act and exclusions as discussed above draw their inferences either from the pre-RTE phase or early phase of RTE implementation. There are very few studies on RTE implementation and its impact on universalisation and exclusion from the evidences of post-RTE period and almost none from the evidences gathered through the recent 71st round (2014) of National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO). In this article, we attempt to examine the state of exclusion in elementary education using the 64th round (2007–2008) and 71st round (2014) of NSS unit level data which present the ideal time period to study the impact of RTE Act on exclusion in pre- and post-RTE framework.

This article has been structured under four broad sections. Besides introduction, the second section discusses objectives, data and methods. Third section presents results and discussion. It particularly focuses on exclusion under sub-themes such as current educational attendance, types of institution, medium of instruction, distance of institution from home, detention, monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE) on elementary education and incentives. The fourth section sums up the discussion.

Objectives, Data and Methods

The objective of this article is to examine various forms of exclusions in elementary education during the pre- and post-RTE periods and to analyse the change that has taken place during post-RTE implementation. For examining and analysing the change during pre- and post-RTE, NSSO’s 64th (2007–2008) and 71st (2014) round unit level data have been used respectively. NSSO is a wing of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), Government of India. It provides a nationally representative large household sample survey data on several social and economic subjects including social consumption on education. Till date, there have been five NSSO rounds on social consumption on education. For the purpose of this study, we make use of the fourth (64th round) which has a total sample of 100,581 households and fifth (71st round) with a total sample of 65,926 households. Schedule 25.2 used for collecting data in both rounds are almost similar with some additional information collected in the 71st round. Private expenditures have also been re-categorised in the 71st round.

This study focuses on children aged between 6 and 14 years that is the reference age of children in the RTE Act. The sample households with six- to fourteen-years-old children in the two NSS rounds are 40,382 (64th round) and 31,521 (71st round). The NSSO data provide us with information on various provisions of the RTE Act. Some important provisions of the RTE Act on which NSSO provides data are on current attendance, detention, types of institutions, medium of instruction, incentives, Monthly per capita expenditure on elementary education (MPCEE) and distance of the learning institution from home. Exclusion variables used in this study are socio-religious groups (explained further), gender, sector and consumption expenditure on elementary education.

The socio-religious groups have been formed by combining together the ‘religion’ and ‘social’ group of the Schedule 25.2 of the NSSO. There are a total of eight religious groups (Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Others) and four social groups (ST, SC, Other Backward Class [OBC], others). By combining the two, six non-overlapping socio-religious groups have been formed. These are ST, SC, Muslim Other Backward Classes (MOBC), Muslim upper classes (MUC), Non-Muslim Other Backward Classes (NMOBC) and Non-Muslim upper classes (NMUC) (Barooah, 2018).

The analyses have been carried out using Stata 14 software. Bivariate analyses were carried out to understand the trend and pattern of various RTE provisions during the pre- and post-RTE period. Binary logistic regression has been used to estimate the probability of current educational attendance with socio-religious groups, gender, sector and MPCE quintile as independent variables. In order to examine the change in the monthly per capita expenditure on elementary education (MPCEE) during the pre- and post-RTE periods, the study fits three pooled log-linear regression models by using two-way interaction between time and socio-religious groups, time and sector, and time and MPCE quintile while keeping the other two independent variables constant. The two-way interaction results between the time and selected explanatory variables are estimated by using the post-estimation method margins to predict mean MPCEE and marginal effect from the estimated anti-log of the regression coefficient.

Results and Discussion

Current Educational Attendance

One of the key outcome variables to monitor the progress of RTE Act is current educational attendance. Ideally, it should be universal for children in the age group of 6 to 14 years. From the observed trend (Table 1), two key inferences can be made. First, the current educational attendance has increased but at a very modest rate during the two NSS periods. With the observed trend of increase in the current educational attendance, it will take almost one more decade to reach the target of universal attendance. Second, exclusions continue to persist in current attendance level even though there has been a marginal improvement in terms of sector and gender. Among the socio-religious groups, the current educational attendance level among Muslims—both MOBC and MUC—are at the lowest. Even the ST and SC fare better in current attendance. Although the highest increase in current educational attendance has been observed among the two Muslim groups, yet their level remains lower than the ST and SC. Thus, Muslims remain the most excluded in terms of current educational attendance at the elementary level in the country even after RTE. NMUC, the other extreme, has the highest current attendance level close to universal attendance. In both periods among MPCE quintiles, children from the poorest MPCE quintile have the lowest current attendance level which increases as we move up in the MPCE quintile. The highest increase in current educational attendance has been observed in the lowest MPCE quintile. During the post-RTE, male–female gaps have declined, but the gender divide is still found to be higher in the bottom quintile. It suggests that there is a greater need to focus on excluded groups such as Muslims, ST, SC, females and poor children to bring them to the educational institutions at the elementary level to realise the objectives set in the RTE Act.

Table 1.

Current Educational Attendance Among Children Aged 6–14 Years During Pre- and Post-RTE in India (in %)

ExclusionCharacteristics	Pre-RTE (2007–2008)						Post-RTE(2014)
	Rural		Urban		Total		Rural		Urban		Total
	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female
Socio-Religious Group
Scheduled Tribe	84.7	78.7	90.1	88.7	85.2	79.4	89.7	86.9	90.4	89.1	89.8	87.1
Scheduled Caste	86.1	81.0	85.4	87.0	86.0	82.0	91.3	90.3	92.6	91.7	91.6	90.6
Non-Muslim OBC	90.5	86.2	93.9	93.1	91.1	87.5	94.7	92.1	96.5	96.4	95.2	93.1
Muslim OBC	78.1	69.3	77.2	76.9	77.8	71.7	85.0	83.9	85.1	85.5	85.0	84.5
Muslim upper class	83.2	79.5	84.5	84.0	83.6	80.9	89.3	86.2	90.3	88.6	89.6	86.8
Non-Muslim upper class	95.1	93.4	97.2	95.5	95.8	94.2	97.6	96.7	97.5	97.8	97.6	97.1
MPCE Quintile
1st (bottom 20%)	83.7	78.8	73.4	77.0	83.0	78.6	89.7	87.0	84.7	82.9	89.1	86.5
2nd	89.4	85.3	83.7	81.4	88.5	84.7	93.7	92.6	90.5	92.2	93.1	92.5
3rd	92.8	89.3	91.9	91.0	92.6	89.8	95.5	95.0	95.4	95.3	95.5	95.1
4th	94.7	91.7	95.2	94.6	94.9	93.0	97.8	97.4	97.9	97.6	97.9	97.5
5th (top 20%)	99.4	97.6	97.7	98.5	98.1	98.3	99.8	98.0	99.1	99.8	99.3	99.4
6–14 years children	88.3	83.8	91.0	90.2	88.9	85.2	92.6	90.6	94.0	93.6	93.0	91.4

Source: Calculated from unit level data of NSSO’s 64th round (2007–2008) and 71st round (2014) on social consumption on education, MoSPI, Government of India.

With the help of a binary logistic regression, we attempted to compute the probability and significance level of particular groups having better current educational attendance in comparison to the reference category during pre- and post-RTE period to assess whether there has been some change in the exclusion. During the pre-RTE, among socio-religious groups, the odds ratio of current educational attendance among MUC and MOBC children were 0.739 and 0.496 (p < 0.001) which suggests the lesser probability of current attendance of these two groups with the reference category ST. On the other hand, NMUC had an odds ratio of 2.169 indicating that the likelihood of their current educational attendance is more than two times than that of ST. In reference to the females, the odds ratio of males is higher (1.325, p < 0.001). The lower odds ratio for urban areas was found in reference to the rural areas, but the result was not been found to be significant. The MPCE quintile showed an increasing odds ratio as one moved from the bottom to the top, the result being highly significant. In reference to MPCE quintile, the likelihood of current educational attendance of children from the top MPCE quintile is 10.4 times more than children from the bottom MPCE quintile.

During the post-RTE period, the odds ratio of current attendance level for MOBC children has further declined in reference to ST (Table 2). However, the odds ratio has marginally improved for MUC although it still remains much below the ST. The odds ratios for the NMOBC and NMUC children, on the other hand, have increased indicating the growing exclusion of the disadvantaged socio-religious categories. The odds ratio of male children in reference to female children has declined modestly during the post-RTE period indicating the trend towards gender parity but the current educational attendance level likelihood is 1.2 times more for male children in comparison to female children. The odds ratio of rural-urban is not significant.

The odds ratio by consumption quintile during post-RTE shows a secular increase in all the consumption quintiles as compared to the pre-RTE phase indicating that the divide between the rich and poor has widened during the post-RTE period.

Table 2.

Odds Ratio (exp β) for the Status of Current Educational Attendance Among Children Aged 6–14 Years During Pre- and Post-RTE, India

Exclusion Characteristics	Pre-RTE (2007–2008)		Post-RTE (2014)
Exclusion Characteristics	exp β	95% CI	exp β	95% CI
Socio-Religious Group
Scheduled Tribe®
Scheduled Caste	0.949	0.886–1.016	1.017	0.903–1.145
Non-Muslim OBC	1.288*	1.207–1.374	1.438*	1.282–1.612
Muslim OBC	0.496*	0.457–0.539	0.446*	0.394–0.504
Muslim upper class	0.739*	0.679–0.805	0.779*	0.675–0.899
Non-Muslim upper class	2.169*	1.983–2.373	2.177*	1.849–2.563
Gender
Female®
Male	1.325*	1.271–1.381	1.205*	1.120–1.297
Sector
Rural®
Urban	0.985	0.934–1.039	0.936	0.862–1.017
MPCE Quintile
1st (bottom 20%)®
2nd	1.549*	1.473–1.629	1.849*	1.686–2.028
3rd	2.418*	2.271–2.574	3.169*	2.817–3.564
4th	4.014*	3.687–4.370	5.778*	4.857–6.875
5th (top 20%)	10.430*	8.876–12.254	11.240*	8.251–15.318
Constant	2.929*	2.758–3.111	9.418*	8.539–10.387
Observations (n)	79,804		55,333

Source: Calculated from unit level data of NSSO’s 64th round (2007–2008) and 71st round (2014) on social consumption on education, MoSPI, Government of India.

Note: * p < 0.001 ® Reference category.

Types of Institutions

Government schools in India are plagued with several inefficiencies such as poor infrastructure, teacher absenteeism, inappropriate pedagogy, and in addition to issues of corporal punishment and discrimination (Soni, 2013). On the other hand, the quality of private schools provisioning in terms of student achievement and subject-specific attainment is definitely better than that of most government-run or government-aided schools (Narayan, 2010). Such factors often compel parents, who can afford, to opt for private institutions. Together with these realities, the RTE Act makes a provision to make the private-unaided school a partner in fulfilling the goals and objectives of the Act (Narayan, 2010). Under Article 12(1)(c), the Act makes a provision of reservation of 25 per cent seats for the economically weaker sections (EWS) in such private-unaided schools. Leveraging on private schools to fulfil the obligations of the state in the RTE Act has been criticised. G.G. Kingdon (2017) argued that despite the RTE mandating 25 per cent seats for EWS in private schools, there is wide disparity between rural and urban areas as most of the private schools are concentrated in urban areas and the extent of utilisation of private schools among different states also shows variation.

In this section, we examine different types of schools being attended by children aged 6 to 14 years by their background characteristics and their trend during the pre- and post-RTE periods. NSSO provides information on three different types of schools—government, private-aided and private-unaided.³

NSSO’s 64th round (2007–2008) provided data in four types of institutions—government, local body, private-aided and private-unaided. However, in NSSO 71st round (2014), local body has been merged within government. While government schools are schools/institutions run by central, state or local governments, public sector undertakings or autonomous organisations completely financed by government; private-aided institution is one which is run by an individual or a private organisation and receives maintenance grant from a government or a local body, and private-unaided institution is one which is managed by an individual or a private organisation and does not receives maintenance grant either from a government or from a local body.

In 2007–2008, 71 per cent children were found to be attending government schools (Table 3). By 2014, this percentage declined to 63 per cent. Interestingly, the loss of children from government schools was the gain of private-unaided schools. In 2007–2008, 19.1 per cent children were studying in private-unaided schools; by 2014, that figure rose to 27.1 per cent. Private-aided schools experienced a marginal increase. The RTE Act provision 12(1)(c) of reserving 25 per cent seats for the EWS in private-unaided schools can be one of the reasons, among other factors, for the shift of children from government to private-unaided schools.

In 2007–2008, nearly 80 per cent of children in rural areas and 41.6 per cent in urban areas were attending government schools. By 2014, that percentage declined to 73.2 per cent in rural areas and 33.6 per cent in urban areas. Most of these children who moved out of government schools in both rural and urban areas appeared to have joined private-unaided schools plausibly because the percentage of children attending private-unaided institutions in the rural areas and urban areas has seen a sharp rise from 13.4 per cent to 20.2 per cent (rural), and from 39 per cent to 47 per cent (urban) during 2007–2008 and 2014, respectively. There is nearly no change in the private-aided schools.

It is observed that girls attending government institutions are more than boys. Not only that, the shift from government to private-unaided schools has been more for boys than girls, making the boy child–girl child differences in government and private institutions starker.

The trend of shift from the government to private was also obvious among different socio-religious groups. A major shift has been observed in the children belonging to NMOBC (10.9%) and MOBC (9.4%) categories. Children from other socio-religious groups such as ST, SC and MUC have a slower shift towards private institutions indicating that the excluded socio-religious groups are still attending government schools in larger proportion.

The preference of private schools increases with the increase in the MPCE quintile (Table 3). It has been found that among the poorest quintile, four out of five children studied in government schools during 2014 while in the richest quintile, only one-sixth of the children attended government schools. The rate of increase in the private-unaided institutions is the highest among the lowest quintile and decreases with the increase in the consumption quintile most plausibly because of the 25 per cent EWS quota in private-unaided institutions.

Table 3.

Types of Institution Attended by Children Aged 6–14 Year During Pre- and Post-RTE in India (in %)

ExclusionCharacteristics	Pre-RTE (2007–2008)			Post-RTE (2014)
ExclusionCharacteristics	Total GovernmentSchool	Private-Aided	Private-Unaided	Total GovernmentSchool	Private-Aided	Private-Unaided
Sector
Rural	80.2	6.4	13.4	73.2	6.6	20.2
Urban	41.6	19.4	38.9	33.6	19.4	47.0
Sex
Male	69.8	9.3	20.9	60.9	9.8	29.3
Female	73.3	9.5	17.3	65.5	10.0	24.5
Socio-Religious Group
Scheduled Tribe	88.9	4.4	6.7	82.3	7.6	10.1
Scheduled Caste	81.5	6.7	11.8	75.4	7.2	17.3
Non-Muslim OBC	72.0	8.7	19.2	60.3	9.6	30.1
Muslim OBC	66.0	11.9	22.1	56.1	12.4	31.5
Muslim upper class	73.4	10.7	15.9	71.6	7.9	20.5
Non-Muslim upper class	53.0	14.4	32.6	44.6	14.1	41.3
MPCE Quintile
1st (bottom 20%)	87.1	4.2	8.7	79.7	5.2	15.1
2nd	79.0	7.3	13.7	68.1	8.8	23.0
3rd	68.4	10.4	21.2	57.5	12.1	30.5
4th	50.8	17.6	31.7	37.8	16.7	45.4
5th (top 20%)	24.3	21.4	54.4	16.8	20.4	62.8
Children aged (6–14) years	71.4	9.4	19.2	63.0	9.9	27.1

Source: Calculated from unit level data of NSSO’s 64th round (2007–2008) and 71st round (2014) on social consumption on education, MoSPI, Government of India.

To conclude, girls and children from rural areas, socio-religious categories other than NMUC, and from the poorest MPCE quintile were the ones who were concentrated more in government schools. Given a choice, there is almost universal preference for private schools but the poverty of the households in bearing the cost of private-unaided schools is the prime reason for them to be in the government schools (Harma, 2011). The learning outcomes and academic achievement of children studying in government schools are poorer than their counterparts in private schools hence they get excluded (Wadhwa, 2014). The 25 per cent reservation appears to have helped some of the disadvantaged children to get into private institutions in the urban settings although the implementation of this clause of the Act is marred with considerable gaps (Sarin et al., 2018). So, 12(1)(c) is no alternative for children of masses who attend government schools to get quality education. Government schools will have to be strengthened at par with private-unaided institutions if exclusion is to be eliminated.

Medium of Instruction in School

The RTE Act, 2009 in section 29(2)(f) mandated that the ‘medium of instruction shall, as far as practicable, be in the child’s mother tongue’. However, the results show a drift from this provision. During 2007–2008, around 47 per cent of children were receiving education in Hindi medium and another 41 per cent were studying in other regional languages while only 12 per cent of children were getting education in English medium. In the post-RTE period, while education in Hindi and other languages declined by 3 per cent and 7 per cent respectively, in English medium it rose by nearly 10 per cent (Table 4).

Table 4.

Medium of Instruction for Children Aged 6–14 Years Currently Attending School During Pre- and Post-RTE in India (in %)

Exclusion Characteristics	Pre-RTE (2007–2008)			Post-RTE (2014)
Exclusion Characteristics	Hindi	English	Others	Hindi	English	Others
Sector
Rural	52.3	5.6	42.1	51.1	12.8	36.1
Urban	31.1	33.0	36.0	25.7	47.2	27.1
Sex
Male	48.5	12.5	39.0	44.3	22.9	32.8
Female	46.2	11.2	42.7	44.8	20.3	34.9
Socio-Religious Group
Scheduled Tribe	47.8	7.0	45.2	43.9	12.3	43.8
Scheduled Caste	51.8	5.3	42.9	51.4	10.8	37.9
Non-Muslim OBC	54.1	9.1	36.8	50.3	21.8	27.8
Muslim OBC	61.6	10.3	28.1	51.5	19.7	28.8
Muslim upper class	22.9	12.2	64.9	23.3	21.2	55.5
Non-Muslim upper class	34.8	26.4	38.8	30.6	39.3	30.1
Type of Institution
Government	51.1	2.0	46.9	50.6	3.8	45.6
Private-aided	25.9	21.6	52.5	24.9	39.5	35.5
Private-unaided	44.3	43.2	12.5	37.8	56.6	5.6
MPCE Quintile
1st (bottom 20%)	58.5	1.5	40.0	63.2	5.9	30.9
2nd	53.3	4.5	42.2	44.8	14.9	40.3
3rd	44.1	11.2	44.8	35.2	25.3	39.5
4th	32.4	24.0	43.6	21.4	44.8	33.8
5th (top 20%)	16.4	57.6	26.0	8.8	76.4	14.8
Children aged (6–14) years	47.4	11.9	40.7	44.6	21.7	33.7

Source: Calculated from unit level data of NSSO’s 64th round (2007–2008) and 71st round (2014) on social consumption on education, MoSPI, Government of India.

In urban India, the English-medium education rose from 33.2 per cent in pre-RTE period to 47.2 per cent in the post-RTE period showing a very sharp rise in the preference for English language. This phenomenon is not restricted to the urban areas alone but extends to rural areas as well. The percentage of children taking the English-medium education in rural areas has also improved from 5.6 to 12.8 per cent. Hindi and other languages have declined for both males and females, but the shift towards the English language is sharper for males than female.

The pattern of decline in children getting Hindi and other language education and growth in the English-medium education is observed across all the socio-religious categories. But, NMUC children were not only found to be receiving the English-medium education in the highest proportion but they also recorded the highest shift towards the English-medium education during the two study periods. The lowest shift towards the English-medium education has been observed in ST (5.3%) and SC children (5.5%). So, the gap between social categories has further widened in terms of the medium of instruction in schools.

Children attending government schools were getting elementary education mostly in Hindi or in other regional languages. But, children attending private institutions have been getting the English-medium education in higher proportion. During the pre- and post-RTE periods, their proportion has also increased drastically. The English-medium education is not only preponderant among the children from upper quintiles but it has also increased very sharply in these MPCE quintiles. Children from the poorest quintile, on the contrary, have been found to be moving from other regional language education to Hindi medium education. Out of the 9.1 per cent of such children who have moved out from other languages among the poorest quintile, 4.7 per cent have moved to the Hindi medium education and 4.4 per cent have moved to the English-medium education (Table 4).

Two key observations can be made here. First, the mandate of RTE to provide education in the mother tongue is surely out of the track and does not match the preference of parents. Second, children from urban areas, male, studying in private-unaided schools, belonging to higher socio-religious categories and from the upper quintile have not only been receiving the English-medium education in higher proportion but their proportion has also increased very sharply during the pre- and post-RTE periods. In contrast, children belonging to rural areas, girls, studying in government schools, belonging to backward socio-religious groups and from the bottom quintiles are still receiving education in Hindi or other regional languages. This has increased the gap between the two sets of children.

A plausible explanation for the shift towards the English-medium education is that there is growing awareness among parents and students that availing school education through English medium enables quality learning. On the other hand, pursuing studies in the vernacular medium may become complicated for the students when they prefer to opt for another level of education after elementary school. Poor performance in higher education institutions or in the job market gives impetus to the idea that school education should be in the English language (Khan, 2017).

Neighbourhood Schools

The Kothari Commission (1964–1966) has recommended provisioning of neighbourhood schools. Article 6 of the RTE Act also stipulates that ‘government should establish schools within such area or limits of the neighbourhood, as may be prescribed, within three years from the commencement of the Act’. In a guideline issued on 25 July 2011 by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), prescribed a distance norm for the neighbourhood school. According to it, the school should be located within 1 km for primary (first to fifth class) and 3 km for upper primary (sixth to eighth class). Prior to the introduction of the distance norm, 8 per cent children of the primary and 85 per cent of upper primary were going to their school within 1 km and 3 km, respectively (Table 5).

Post-RTE (2014), there was a trend which was in contravention to the prescribed norms of the Act: There has been a decline in the percentage of children attending primary school (71.7%) and upper primary school (81.4%) within their neighbourhood. The pattern of decline in attending the neighbourhood school has been observed in all categories under study (Table 5). But, the decline is more pronounced for boys living in urban areas, among NMUC studying in private institutions, and among economically better-off children. The concept of a neighbourhood school, thus, appears to be fading away for those who can afford private institutions offering English medium quality education.

Table 5.

Distance of Institution from Place of Residence During Pre- and Post-RTE in India (in %)

Exclusion Characteristics	Primary SchoolLess than 1 km		Upper PrimaryLess than 3 km
Exclusion Characteristics	Pre-RTE(2007–2008)	Post-RTE(2014)	Pre-RTE(2007–2008)	Post-RTE(2014)
Sector
Rural	82.3	75.0	83.5	80.5
Urban	72.2	61.4	89.2	83.8
Sex
Male	79.3	70.2	83.6	80.5
Female	81.3	73.5	86.7	82.4
Socio-Religious Group
Scheduled Tribe	82.3	78.4	85.2	78.1
Scheduled Caste	83.4	79.8	89.2	84.9
Non-Muslim OBC	82.6	70.6	84.7	81.3
Muslim OBC	82.0	74.5	86.0	84.8
Muslim upper class	79.8	77.2	89.4	90.4
Non-Muslim upper class	70.0	56.7	80.8	76.2
Type of Institution
Government	87.7	86.4	88.4	87.2
Private-aided	59.6	45.7	79.8	71.7
Private-unaided	59.6	47.8	76.7	71.0
MPCE Quintile
1st (bottom 20%)	85.6	82.0	87.2	86.5
2nd	84.6	75.4	86.0	82.8
3rd	79.0	66.5	86.3	80.9
4th	72.3	52.5	85.1	78.0
5th (top 20%)	50.7	39.0	75.8	65.5
Children aged (6–14) years	80.2	71.7	85.0	81.4

Source: Calculated from unit level data of NSSO’s 64th round (2007–2008) and 71st round (2014) on social consumption on education, MoSPI, Government of India.

Monthly Per Capita Expenditure on Elementary Education

Household expenditure on education increases with the rise in income. In a background paper, prepared for the Tendulkar Commission on Poverty Estimation, Tilak (2009), using National Accounts Statistics (NAS) estimates on private final expenditure on education, finds that an increase of 1 per cent in total household income would result in 1.5 per cent increase in household expenditures on education. In per capita terms, this coefficient of elasticity increases to 2.1, meaning thereby, household per capita increase by 1 per cent would lead to a 2.1 per cent increase in the expenditure on education per capita.

The RTE Act provides for right-based ‘free’ education as enshrined in the directive principles of the constitution. But, the term ‘free’ is subject to different treatment by different policy makers depending on socio-economic circumstances (Tilak, 1996). The data drawn from both pre- and post-RTE period suggest that out-of-pocket expenditure incurred by an individual for elementary education has spiked even during the post-RTE period. Monthly per capita expenditure on elementary education (MPCEE) is not only increasing among the children studying in private institutions but also in government institutions. The MPCEE for children studying in government schools was rupees 57 during 2007–2008 which increased to rupees 141 during 2014, whereas MPCEE for those studying in private schools increased from rupees 346 to rupees 992 during the same period (Table 6). At the national level, MPCEE was rupees 148 during 2007–2008 which rose to almost three times at rupees 478 during 2014.

Table 6.

Monthly Per Capita Expenditure on Elementary Education (MPCEE) During Pre- and Post-RTE in India (in Rupees)

Exclusion Characteristics	Pre-RTE(2007–2008)	Post-RTE(2014)
Sector
Rural	88	282
Urban	333	995
Socio-religious group
Scheduled tribe	66	220
Scheduled caste	87	271
Non-Muslim OBC	120	453
Muslim OBC	113	355
Muslim upper class	128	347
Non-Muslim upper class	305	946
MPCE Quintile
1st (bottom 20%)	46	153
2nd	66	278
3rd	98	419
4th	162	795
5th (top 20%)	480	1914
Per male/Per female child expenditure
Per male child	149	486
Per female child	134	431
Per Government/Private School-going Child
Per child in government school	57	141
Per child in private school	346	992
Total	148	478

Source: Calculated from unit level data of NSSO’s 64th round (2007–2008) and 71st round (2014) on social consumption on education, MoSPI, Government of India.

MPCEE has remained marginally higher for the boys than girls. In the urban areas, it was almost three and a half times more than in rural areas in 2014. MPCEE has increased among all socio-religious groups during the two NSS periods, and it increased the most for NMOBC. MPCEE increases with the increase in the overall consumption expenditure. Also, during the two NSS phases, the poorest consumption quintile recorded the least rise in MPCEE.

In order to understand why the MPCEE has increased even among children studying in government institutions, we tried to dissect MPCEE through different expenditure heads (Table 7). During the pre-RTE period, a major part of MPCEE on children studying in the government institutions was on books and stationery (62.9%). Post-RTE, there has been a steep decline in this proportion (41.5%). This decline might be because of the better government supply of books during the post-RTE period. On the other hand, the proportion of MPCEE on private coaching among the children studying in government institutions has jumped sharply from 9.1 per cent to 33 per cent during the two study periods. This is a worrisome trend which hints towards poor quality of education being imparted to students in government institutions as a result of which they resort to private tuitions.

Table 7.

Expenditure Pattern of MPCEE Among the Children Attending Government and Private Institutions During Pre- and Post-RTE in India (in %)

Particular of Education Expenditure	Government School		Private School
Particular of Education Expenditure	Pre-RTE (2007–2008)	Post-RTE (2014)	Pre-RTE (2007–2008)	Post-RTE (2014)
Course fee	17.2	11.2	55.5	56.0
Books and stationeries	62.9	41.5	28.3	19.1
Transport	3.9	6.3	11.3	12.4
Private coaching	9.1	33.0	1.7	9.0
Other expenditure	6.9	8.0	3.2	3.5
Total expenditure	57	141	346	992

Source: Calculated from unit level data of NSSO’s 64th round (2007–2008) and 71st round (2014) on social consumption on education, MoSPI, Government of India.

Table 8.

Predicted Mean of MPCEE from the Pooled Linear Regression Models, 2007–2008 and 2014

Explanatory Variables	Predicted Mean (₹) (2007–2008)	Predicted Mean (₹) (2014)	Discrete Change (₹) (2014 to 2007–2008)	SE of Differences	z Score	P > \|z\|
Socio-Religious Groups
Scheduled Tribe®	62.9	165.9	103.0	2.9	35.0	0.000
Scheduled Caste	58.5	176.5	118.0	2.8	42.0	0.000
Non-Muslim OBC	67.1	243.3	176.2	2.7	64.2	0.000
Muslim OBC	61.4	207.6	146.3	5.0	29.2	0.000
Muslim upper class	67.2	228.4	161.2	5.6	28.6	0.000
Non-Muslim upper class	93.1	350.5	257.4	4.8	53.3	0.000
Sector
Rural®	59.6	175.8	116.2	1.5	75.9	0.000
Urban	88.2	366.7	278.5	3.7	76.0	0.000
MPCE Quintile
1st (bottom 20%) ®	35.6	92.8	57.1	1.2	49.3	0.000
2nd	48.9	157.2	108.3	2.3	47.7	0.000
3rd	68.1	227.9	159.8	3.2	49.2	0.000
4th	97.5	404.9	307.5	6.3	49.2	0.000
5th (top 20%)	207.0	866.8	659.8	15.8	41.7	0.000
Number of observation	71790
Adjusted R² value	0.471

Source: Author’s calculation from the pooled unit level data of NSSO’s 64th round and 71st round on social consumption on education.

Notes: 1. For predicted means, three linear regression models have been computed by interacting ‘Year’ with the three explanatory variables one after another while adjusting other two variables in the equation.

2. All the predicted mean was significantly different at p < 0.001 in Wald test.

3. ®is the reference category.

Course fee constituted a smaller proportion of the MPCEE among children studying in government institutions and it has declined in the post-RTE phase which reflects the government’s initiatives towards providing free education. On the other hand, course fee constituted the single largest component of MPCEE for the children studying in private institutions. During the two study periods, the course fee in private schools has marginally increased from 55.5 per cent to 56 per cent. Akin to government institutions, the proportional expenditure on books and stationery have declined but expenditures on transport, private coaching and other heads have increased during the post-RTE among the children attending private institutions.

In order to study the significant change in MPCEE by interacting time with other explanatory variables, we estimated the predicted mean from the linear regression models (Table 8). This was estimated to understand the impact of time on MPCEE. For this, data from the two NSS periods were pooled together. Since the MPCEE variable was not normally distributed, a log variable of MPCEE was used as dependent variable. While computing the regression models, time (year) has been interacted with explanatory variables (socio-religious groups, sector and MPCE quintile) one after another by keeping other two explanatory variables constant in three different regression models. By using post-estimation command margin, we predicted mean MPCEE and marginal effect from the anti-log of the regression coefficient of interaction variables. The result provides us a statistically significant change in the mean MPCEE between the pre- and post-RTE periods.

The result shows that the predicted mean MPCEE for ST (rupees 62.9), SC (rupees 58.5) and MOBC (rupees 61.4) were not only lower during pre-RTE but they also had significant lowest discrete change during post-RTE in comparison to NMUC, NMOBC and MUC. Similarly, the predicted mean MPCEE for rural areas was rupees 59.6 during the pre-RTE period in comparison to rupees 88.2 in urban areas. During 2007–2008 and 2014, the discrete change in predicted mean MPCEE in rural areas was rupees 116.2 whereas in urban areas it was rupees 278.5. The result is significant (p < 0.001). As far as the MPCE quintile is concerned, we observe that during pre-RTE period, predicted mean MPCEE was lowest for the bottom quintile (rupees 35.6) and it rose in the upper quintiles which is quite understandable. The top quintile predicted mean MPCEE was rupees 207. But, what is important to note here is the significant discrete change that has taken place during the pre- and post-RTE period. The discrete change in predicted mean MPCEE for the bottom quintile was rupees 57.1 whereas it was rupees 659.8 for the top quintile (p < 0.001). The analysis shows that the MPCEE gap between the deprived children and those from better-off households has widened during the post-RTE period which will have its repercussions in the outcomes of education.

Incentives

Incentives are found to be positively influencing enrolment/attendance of children in schools (Tilak, 1996). Apart from free education, a number of other school incentives such as scholarships, books, school dress and midday meal have been provided to enrolled students since independence. RTE Act 2009 talks only of free elementary education and is silent on other incentives. Ironically, free elementary education in India has declined during the two NSS periods from 69.5 per cent to 58.7 per cent. This puts a big question mark on RTE implementation. On the other hand, incentives such as scholarships and midday meals have increased from 14.6 per cent to 20.8 per cent, and from 52.9 per cent to 59.3 per cent respectively (Table 9).

Table 9.

Coverage of Incentives During Pre- and Post-RTE in India (in %)

Exclusion Characteristics	Free Education		Scholarship		Midday Meal
Exclusion Characteristics	2007–2008	2014	2007–2008	2014	2007–2008	2014
Sector
Rural	77.8	68.6	17.3	24.6	59.8	68.4
Urban	41.6	30.4	5.4	10.0	29.7	33.1
Sex
Male	67.1	56.3	13.1	19.0	51.1	57.2
Female	72.3	61.5	16.4	23.0	55.0	61.7
Socio-Religious Group
Scheduled Tribe	85.9	78.8	24.2	32.9	71.9	77.9
Scheduled Caste	77.5	71.2	24.8	31.9	60.3	71.4
Non-Muslim OBC	71.1	56.8	14.7	20.6	54.4	57.4
Muslim OBC	66.0	56.4	16.4	19.2	53.6	54.4
Muslim upper class	74.0	61.8	3.6	12.1	51.5	66.4
Non-Muslim upper class	50.5	38.3	3.3	6.7	34.4	39.7
Type of Institution
Government	90.2	89.7	19.1	29.9	70.2	88.8
Private-aided	43.9	18.0	6.4	11.1	26.2	29.7
Private-unaided	6.2	1.7	2.3	3.5	2.5	1.8
MPCE Quintile
1st (bottom 20%)	84.4	75.6	20.5	29.7	66.0	73.8
2nd	77.2	62.9	16.1	21.3	59.7	64.9
3rd	66.6	52.6	12.5	16.4	49.9	55.1
4th	50.6	35.3	7.5	9.2	35.7	37.7
5th (top 20%)	23.0	12.8	1.8	4.0	13.6	14.3
Children aged (6–14) years	69.5	58.7	14.6	20.8	52.9	59.3

Source: Calculated from unit level data of NSSO’s 64th round (2007–2008) and 71st round (2014) on social consumption on education, MoSPI, Government of India.

Also, free education has declined invariably in all the exclusion categories under study. Earlier, almost 90 per cent of children from rural areas, girls, ST and SC, and from the poorest quintile were receiving free education from government schools. While we find that free education has declined, scholarship and midday meals have expanded during the two NSS periods. Since such scholarships and midday meals are provided by the government in their institutions, most of the children who study in government schools only benefit from such incentives. It is because of this reason that children from rural areas, girls, ST and SC, and from the poorest quintile received a large part of these incentives whereas those studying private schools do not get such incentives.

Conclusions

The RTE Act is undoubtedly one of the landmark regulations in the education sector aimed at providing an impetus to India’s vision of making elementary education compulsory for all. But, our analyses in this article shows that in terms of the key constituent of elementary education such as current educational attendance, types of institutions, medium of instruction, neighbourhood schools, MPCEE and incentives, the divide between the deprived and the better-off children has expanded over the pre- and post-RTE period. There is some improvement during the post-RTE period in the current educational attendance. But, India is still far from attaining universal elementary education and with the given trend, India will require another decade to universalise elementary education. Muslim children, ST and SC still remain the most excluded socio-religious groups in terms of current educational attendance. In post-RTE period, the gender and rural-urban gap in the current educational attendance has blurred marginally but the gap still persists.

However, what is worrisome is the fact that free education has declined invariably in all the categories under study. The pooled regression analysis of MPCEE significantly shows that the gap in the predicted mean of the deprived groups and better-off groups of children has enormously widened between the pre- and post-RTE period. Increase in the expenditure on private coaching is further worrisome. While free education has declined, incentives such as scholarships and midday meals have expanded during both the NSS periods. Even then, it is not able to attract children to government institutions where such incentives are being provided.

The marked shift of children from government to private schools in both rural and urban areas during 2007–2008 and 2014 is also disturbing. Government schools are plagued with poor infrastructure and teaching–learning methods. No wonder, no economically-capable parent wants to send their children to government schools. Despite all these factors, nearly two-thirds of the total children aged 6 to 14 years are still attending government institutions. These children predominantly belong to the excluded and deprived groups who cannot access costly private education. They are the ones who require the best of the education so that they get mainstreamed and are able to compete with the better-off children on an equal footing. This demands a serious policy rethink on whether incentives need to be expanded or free quality education should be augmented in government schools. It will require holistic and long demanding measures such as an increase in the education budget, providing modern teaching–learning infrastructure, improved pedagogy with teacher training among others. Is government paying any heed to it?

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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