The Act lays down minimum norms and standards for all schools, government and private, through a mandatory schedule. This includes number of teaching days per year, number of teaching hours per day, number of rooms, availability of teaching learning materials, library, toilets, safe drinking water, playground, kitchen for mid-day meals, Pupil Teacher Ratio, subject teachers in classes 6 to 8, part time art, work and physical instructors and so on. Governments and private managements have three years to upgrade their existing schools to these minimum norms, barring which they will not be allowed to operate. Governments have to provide such a neighbourhood school to all children within three years, i.e. by March 31, 2013. The prescribed norms are minimum, which implies that nothing stops state governments/managements to have higher norms than those listed in the schedule. In particular, if some schools already have higher norms, it does not imply that they reduce those norms to match the schedule.

To ensure that instead of a rigid national norm, the states define it in terms of their geographical, social and cultural realities. The Model Rule (4) indicates these realities, like difficult terrain, risk of landslides, floods, lack of roads, and in general, danger to young children where the 1 km and 3 km norm could be reduced. For children of small hamlets, it could mean free transportation by extending the distance limits, or residential schools. The Rules also prescribe that governments will have to take responsibility to ensure children with disabilities are helped to reach school, as also to ensure that social and cultural barriers, like low caste children and young girls not being able to access their schools due to social interference, are taken care of. The model rules for neighbourhood and access could be further improved by the state governments in terms of their realities.

It is a common misconception that the Kothari Commission Report recommended that the common school concept that it envisioned would be implemented by having just one kind of ‘common’ school. The Report accepted that there would be ordinary government and government aided schools, but their quality would be raised to a minimum standard; about 10% government schools would be of better quality (like the Navodaya and Kendriya Vidyalayas); and private schools would exist; which would have to be kept out of the common school system. Here is what the Kothari Commission said:

A nation-wide programme of school improvement should be organized with three objectives: (a) to raise all schools to at least to a minimum prescribed level; (b) to assist every school to rise to the highest level of which it is capable; and (c) during the next ten years, to raise at least ten percent of the institutions to an optimum standard.

Raising all schools to a minimum prescribed level is what the mandatory schedule of norms and standards in the Act is intended for. As for private schools, the Kothari Commission (section 10.77) acknowledged that:

“The right to establish private schools for any purpose whatsoever has also been given to all citizens under clauses (c) and (g) of Article 19 which provide that all citizens shall have the right ‘to form associations’ and to ‘practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business’ and which obviously covers the right of individuals and groups to establish and conduct educational institutions of their choice. Private schools may, therefore, be established under the provisions of the Constitution and, if they do not seek aid or recognition from the State, they will have to be treated as being outside the national system of public education.”

Common school is defined as part of the National System of Education in the Report.

The Act is very much in line with these prescriptions; perhaps better because it mandates private schools would be obliged to take 25% children from disadvantaged groups from their neighbourhoods, without screening; where as the Kothari Commission Report suggested that talented children should be sent on scholarships to these schools, that would entail admission tests.

Financial estimates made by the National University for Educational Planning and Administration suggest that an additional 1.71 lakh crore rupees (about thirty four crore rupees per year) shall be required to implement the Act in the next five years. Since the Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha first, a financial estimate was not attached (only a financial memorandum was, which committed funds from the consolidated funds of the government). With an attachment of financial estimates, the Bill would have had to be introduced in the Lok Sabha first (as a money Bill), where it would have lapsed since it was not passed before the end of the term of the last Lok Sabha. MHRD has recently revised the NUEPA figure of 1.71 lakh crore rupees to 2.33 lakh crore rupees for five years, taking into account the previous deficit of teacher recruitment under SSA, when the Act had not come into force.

A sharing pattern will be arrived at through mutual negotiations between the central and state governments. The SSA norms and sharing patterns will need to be reviewed. For example, the RtE-SSA harmonization committee’s report has already recommended a 75:25 sharing pattern between the center and the states instead of the present 55:45 sharing ratio under the SSA.

It implies that on the basis of a reference by the central government through the President, the Finance Commission could sanction monies directly to states for the Act, which would be in addition to the sharing ratio of the centrally sponsored scheme operating the Act. It provides an additional window for central funds to be allocated to states that need them most. The 13^th Finance Commission has since made allocations of Rs 24068 crore over a five year period specifically for elementary education. This will help States meet their 15% state share towards SSA – from the sliding scale of 65:35 in 2008-09 to 50:50 in 2011-12, but may be inadequate to meet the RtE requirements.

As per the Act, the local authority also has the right to do so. This opens up the possibility of decentralised school calendars suiting local conditions.

The implications of the number of hours for which a school shall function per day indicate that. This would go a long way in forcing children out of labour since double shifts allow them to go to schools as also to engage in labour.

Many states face this problem in urban areas in particular, but in rural areas too, as in Bihar where most of the land is in private hands. Since a school is a fundamental right of children now, the government will have to hire accommodation for schools, or consider acquiring or buying land, as it does for other projects of national importance.

Since the Governments have to provide a neighbourhood school to every child in three years, which includes a vast number of children who are out of school today, the need for land and school buildings should force the governments to refrain from removing schools on prime lands in big cities for making land available for commercial purposes. In any case it will require vibrant civil society interventions, as were seen in Indore, Karnataka and other places. Since such transfer of land has also been reported in PPP kind of school arrangements (in Mumbai), it should be clear that all memorandums for PPPs if at all signed, would be under the purview of the provisions of this Act for the age group 6 to 14. They can not be exempted from this Act. The government can not seek PPPs for schools catering to the age group 6 to 14 since providing a neighbourhood school to all children in three years is a compulsion on the state. But, as it appears, if the government signs MoUs for 3500 secondary schools which have classes 1 to 8 attached to them, then the provisions of the Act, like admission tests, capitation fees, CCE etc. would apply to these classes of such schools.

There are two options; if children migrate with parents, particularly small children, the schools in the migrated areas have to admit all children even if they can not produce transfer certificates. Or if the parents demand that their children be given education in their native place while they are away for work, appropriate governments/local authorities shall have to ensure the availability of free residential schools

Legally, of the appropriate governments, local authorities and the schools; monitored by the SMCs, civil society groups and the NCPCR/SCPCRs. Model Rule 5, (3) and (4) explains this in clear terms:

(3) The State government/local authority shall ensure that no child is subjected to caste, class, religious or gender abuse in the school.

(4) For the purposes of clause (c) of section 8 and clause (c) of section 9, the State

Government and the Local Authority shall ensure that a child belonging to a weaker section and a child belonging to disadvantaged group is not segregated or discriminated against in the classroom, during mid day meals, in the play grounds, in the use of common drinking water and toilet facilities, and in the cleaning of toilets or classrooms.

The governments and the academic institutions under them, like the NCTE, NCERT, SCERTs and so on, by ensuring that the norms and standards of the schools are adhered to within three years, all teachers are professionally trained in a maximum of five years, curriculum, content and process follows principles laid out in Section 29, a comprehensive and continuous evaluation system is in place, and children learn in an atmosphere free of fear, anxiety and trauma. The governments would be well advised to seek collaboration from university education departments and civil society groups that have experience in quality elementary education in this effort. These would be monitored by the NCPCR/SCPCRs and civil society institutions.

In addition, as per the model rules 21(3), the appropriate governments must undertake systemic quality reviews periodically through institutions of renown, which are not confined only to testing children’s achievement scores, but include assessment of teacher quality, curricular issues, social discrimination, infrastructure and other parameters that impact on quality. The involvement of institutions of higher learning on a continuous basis would be critical in this respect.