The already tardy implementation of the right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (aka RTE) Act, 2009, in Karnataka has hit yet another roadblock with the Central government slashing funds for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA, ‘Education for All’) programme. The Congress-led UPA-II government at the Centre has cut the state’s RTE-SSA grant for 2013-14 to Rs.1,182 crore from the Rs.2,064 crore allocated in the Union Budget 2013-14 — a cut of 43 percent. Under the provisions of the RTE Act, which came into force in 2010, the funding for implementation of RTE-SSA is to be shared between the Central and state governments in the ratio 65:35.

Speaking at an all-India conference of higher education ministers held in Bangalore on November 25, Union human resource development (HRD) minister M.M. Pallam Raju attributed the downturn in the world economy for the cut back of the Central government struggling to contain its fiscal deficit to 4.5 percent of GDP, to rein in inflation and CAD (current account deficit).

However according to monitors of the political scene, with the general election only six months away, investment is being diverted from education to fund populist programmes such as MNREGA, the Food Security Bill, agri-produce support prices etc. As usual, education and health outlays are the first casualty. Following the slashing of RTE-SSA Central grants, the six-months-old Congress state government in Karnataka has put the construction of new schools, and classrooms on hold, frozen teaching materials grants and withdrawn all special incentives for girls and special needs children.

At the grassroots, cancellation of these and other initiatives to meet the infrastructure upgradation, teacher training, teacher-pupil and other norms mandated by the RTE Act means that the quality of education dispensed in the state’s 45,200 government primaries will go from bad to worse. According to a survey report released on November 21 by the Karnataka State Quality Assessment and Accreditation Council (KSQAAC), not even one government primary school in the state in a sample database is classified A-plus. The survey, which assessed 1,020 government primaries on learning outcomes, infrastructure and teacher quality, found that a mere five schools qualified for ‘A’ grade status, 122 obtained a ‘B’, with the majority — 839 — classified ‘C’ and ‘D’.

With the Karnataka state government experiencing financial strain — in 2013-14 it allocated a mere Rs.413 crore to RTE-SSA, inadequate to meet even its 35 percent commitment— there’s a danger of the RTE Act, which prescribes minimum infrastructure, teacher-pupil ratio and teacher qualification norms under s.19, becoming a non-starter in Karnataka’s 45,200 public primaries. “The Centre’s default on its commitment is a betrayal of the Act and will adversely affect the quality of public education in the state. As the KSQAAC survey shows, government primary schools in Karnataka are nowhere near meeting the infrastructure and teacher-pupil norms stipulated by the RTE Act. Respecting the budgetary allocation for RTE-SSA is the precondition of improving the quality of teaching-learning in government primaries,” says V.P. Niranjanaradhya, director of Centre for Child and the Law, National Law School of India University, Bangalore.

The failure of the Central and state governments to allocate the minimum resources committed by it for RTE-SSA has not only hit quality of education dispensed in its own schools, but has also impacted the private schools sector. Two years after the state’s 13,000 private unaided schools admitted students under the RTE quota — s.12 (1) (c) of the Act mandates private schools to admit 25 percent of children in class I from among poor and socially disadvantaged households in their neighbourhood — the Karnataka government is yet to reimburse private schools tuition fees as stipulated by s.12 (2) of the Act. In June 2012, the government had announced a fee reimbursement of Rs.11,848 per student per year for poor students admitted under the RTE quota into private schools. Sixteen months later, the state government is yet to settle this debt.

As usual in Karnataka — as across the subcontinent — children’s priorities come last.

Sangeetha Samuel (Bangalore)