It need not be this way. The question as to what is the best way to teach is best decided by market process. To trust a government mandate designed by the likes of Behar over market process is irresponsible. Moreover, no politics is possible in the realm of science and mathematics. It is however possible in economics, history and other similar subjects to some extent.

What Behar means when he says, “curriculum and textbooks will be a visible battleground” is that he and others will continue to deny history just because his politics requires him to do it. School curriculum should be changed to ensure that it doesn't become just another megaphone for the Left, and contains facts instead of propaganda.

So now, here’s another cheat sheet, this time with a few ideas which the central government can use in various combinations to improve upon the system.

Cheat sheet 2

1. No political compulsion prevents the government from declaring atheists to be an official minority. None exists to prevent them from exempting women, SCs, STs and OBCs from the RTE Act. One way to save our institutions from this depraved law is by perverting it even further.

2. Ask the NITI Aayog to take a closer look at the issue and come up with ways to change the RTE and eliminate the regulatory aspect of the Act. A Group of Secretaries in Education recently met with the prime minister in the presence of officials from the Aayog. It appears that the Prime Minister’s Office recognises that there exists a depreciation in our education system. The only thing left to do then is act on that knowledge.

3. As a temporary measure, amend the rules to ensure that the RTE is only applicable in those districts or blocks where all government-run institutions are RTE-compliant. Input requirements vis-à-vis land, playground size, teacher-student ratio and more need to be relaxed urgently to provide some breathing space.

4. Relax and make transparent the process to create new school boards which can cater to different geographies or classes of people. This will provide some competition to the Central Board of Secondary Education and state school boards, and probably force them to raise their standards.

5. Create a new body to protect the interests of linguistic minorities in various states. The NCMEI, with its sectarian composition, cannot be trusted.

6. At least ensure the NDA state governments stop closing down and/or harassing Hindu-run institutions. The Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in Madhya Pradesh is trying to close down 30 per cent of private school capacity in the state by strictly implementing the RTE. Fadnavis’ government in Maharashtra has sent closure notices to around 7,000 schools. The very act of trying to close down school capacity in a nation which faces a massive shortage of the same is downright immoral. There are more than enough Public Interest Litigation activists to harass Hindu-run educational institutions. The least that the NDA can do is not add to it.

Human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar needs to start speaking up about the many risky aspects of RTE. If even he can't speak up about how sectarian the RTE is so as to avoid criticism by the mainstream media, there is very little hope that school founders, administrators and parents will speak up. He needs to take the lead in restarting the debate on RTE.

To conclude, it is incredibly important for us citizens to realise that school education is much too important an issue to remain quiet on. The best way to not be silent is learning the facts and taking a stand against the antics of ‘education activists’ like Behar who want to close down our schools.