Right to Education struggles to make an impact

Only 29 per cent of the seats reserved for disadvantaged students under the Right to Education (RTE) Act were filled in 2013-14, finds a new study. In Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, the percentage of seats filled was as low as three per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively. The top performing states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan together accounted for half of the national fill rate.

The study, a collaborative effort of the Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad, Central Square Foundation, Accountability Initiative (Centre for Policy Research) and the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy draws on the District Information System for Education (DISE) 2013-14 data to provide a comparison of fill rate of RTE quota seats across private schools in 28 states.

The report points out that of the 2,06,000 private unaided schools with Class I, only about 45,000 schools reported enrolling students under the provision in 2013-14. The states of Rajasthan (65 per cent), Delhi (48 per cent) and Uttarakhand (43 per cent) had the highest school participation rate, while Andhra Pradesh (0.1 per cent), Odisha (1 per cent) and Uttar Pradesh (2 per cent) reported having the lowest school participation rate.

According to Ashish Dhawan, founder and chief executive officer, Central square foundation, "even after five years of RTE, state rules and notifications of this provision are not clearly defined, this is leading to ineffective implementation across states."