Parents in Stampede to get admission form for kids in Loreto Convent, Lucknow (Source)

It is hard to conceive of a worse piece of legislation than the so called RTE law. Everyone knows this is a disaster and has made school education worse all around (and going to make it even worse), but no one wants to bell the cat. The Congress party doesn’t care because it believes proportionally its constituents will either benefit from it or perceive it to be relatively beneficial. The BJP will not repeal the law because it chickens out whenever any law with ‘social justice’ attached to it is presented. The Idea of India intellectuals actually like this law. The rest of the commentariat, barring a few notable exception has maintained a studied silence on the issue. Amazingly, many journalists active on social media faced huge problems getting admission for their kids. But being ideological supporters of the regime that hatches this type of laws, they have remained silent.

Yet, volumes have been written on the law. For instance this WSJ piece positions it as a law that eases the conscience of the guilt ridden rich, that even their driver or maid can send their kids to decent schools.

What’s been missing is a very basic back of the envelope calculation. So, I am gonna do that for you in this post.

The Right to Education law has basically three components. They are:

1) The 25% clause: this is the clause most people believe is the RTE law, and they love it. This is generally described as (mostly a lie): every school shall admit an extra 25% kids from the poor and downtrodden sections.

2) The quality clause: Every school shall conform to the following minimum requirements etc. This seems benign, but has proved to be fatal for many schools.

3) School control: The holy grail of RTE, the key hidden idea that people in power love yet most of the public are completely oblivious of. This is achieved through a series of clauses pertaining to the school management committee and in conjunction with the mushrooming school NGO ecosystem.

Let’s focus on the 25% clause, taking it at face value (i.e. all schools and the 25% to be from the truly poor). In terms of school quality, only about 20% of available seats pass muster. We do see this in practice - the RTE rush is totally concentrated on a few schools in a few select metro areas. In other words, at best the total number of poor kids to be absorbed is 25% of this 20% - ergo, only 5% kids nationally. Even this number is high, because in reality only about say 30% people have access to this type of schools. Add to it the RTE exemptions on account of being minority schools and the fact that the 25% ends up being not the truly poor but the politically favored.

As you can see, the RTE can truly help only a very small percentage of kids nationally, maybe 2%. Is this something to get excited about?

Also, think about it this way: you want decent quality primary education for as many kids as possible. You really want it at an optimal cost. Sending poor kids to the top ranked schools means you have chosen the least cost effective way of achieving so. It is like saying the PDS should offer Dehradun Basmati and Darjeeling Tea. It may warm the cockles of the socialist, but alas, doesn’t work in practice.

Now for the quality clause. It is as bizarre as it gets. Think of it this way: suppose the Govt says every mobile phone manufacturer must conform to a set of standards else it can not sell phones. Only the iPhone and a few Samsung models conform. Does it make any sense? This has led to many school closures. Strangely, Govt schools, which are the worst offenders are not being addressed at all. Eventually this will lead to political appropriation of all 2nd - 3rd tier private schools. Unless you have political connections (or a minority waiver), you won’t be able to run schools at all.

I don’t want to dwell on the school control aspect except that magically a lot of school activist NGOs have sprung up. They are the brave new enforcers of school license quota permit raj. Good luck running a school.

So, to summarize, if the brave idea of RTE was to extend quality schooling to an additional 25% kids (which in itself is like a supply reducing tax), the other clauses have the potential to further reduce school supply. This is precisely not the way to do it.

The RTE is leading to elite schools becoming even more elite and exclusive. It will make tier 2-3 schools, where most of the aspirational class kids go more expensive and reduce their supply. Worst, RTE does not even address something like 60-80% kids since they are outside the strike zone.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how flawed the system is. For more info, please follow @realitycheckind on twitter and read his blog.