- Lower capacity: RTE timetables the extinction of 25% of India's 15 lakh schools that are 'unrecognised'. These mostly low-cost schools have been an entrepreneurial response to parental choice. Our demographic dividend — 10 lakh people will join the labour force every month for the next 20 years — would have been a bigger nightmare if these private schools had not substituted for the missing state in the last 20 years. And while it is a lie that all these schools deliver quality, it is true that a bad school is better than no school.
- Higher cost: RTE essentially mandates a huge rise in school fees. It micro-specifies salaries, qualifications and infrastructure. RTE specifies that every school must have a playground. The 25% children from disadvantaged groups will require massive cross-subsidisation because state governments propose to reimburse way below cost. All this micromanaging of schools — to the delight of teachers and the real estate mafia — hits middle class parents with higher prices for essentially the same quality product.
- Lower competition: A big driver of higher quality and lower costs in higher education has been competition. RTE makes it impossible for education entrepreneurs to compete on price since many states propose to regulate fees and uncertainty has paused the Cambrian explosion of energy in school entrepreneurship. This means lower capacity and lower competition. And that means schools don't have clients, but hostages.
- Hihger corruption: RTE mandates schools to take 25% students from 'poor' backgrounds. Some states are going overboard — Karnataka requires schools to conduct household surveys to create and maintain records of all children in a 1-3 km area from birth till 14 years of age to identify the poor. But who is poor? If the Indian government can't decide whether 24% or 42% of India is poor, how will a BEO (block education officer)? In reality, he or she won't; they will auction their certification of poor to the highest bidder. What constitutes appropriate efforts to bring back dropouts? How will teacher student-ratios be calculated? The BEO, long a thorn in the flesh, now has powers to be a dagger in the heart. RTE provides the BEO's the ability to convert every school into a personal ATM. Not all, but most will.
- More confusion: Does changed evaluation mean no exams? What does immunity for government bureaucrats mean? Is incompetence good faith? How will mid-day meals be handled for the 25% in private schools? Where will these 25% go after Grade VIII? Will the 75% parent-populated government school management committees have the power to hire and fire teachers?
- RTE prohibits schools from admission procedures and forces them to select students on a random basis within a policy that "includes criteria for the categorisation of applicants in terms of the objectives of the school on a rational, reasonable and just basis". By definition, don't random, rational, reasonable and just mean different things to different people? Why take away the right to detain or expel till Class VIII? Can we be equal and excellent?
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