Right to Education Bill hits a roadblock

NEW DELHI: A child’s fundamental right to receive elementary level schooling may take awhile to become a reality. As the enabling legislation — the model Right to Education Bill — is all set to become part of a Centre-state tussle.

State education secretaries have asked the Centre for more time to consider the model bill. States will not be able to adopt the model Right to Education Bill in a rush to meet the Centre’s deadline for the Eleventh Plan period. This would require states to revert latest by December, so that the financial implications can be worked out by the Centre.

States have also objected to the fiscal carrot that the Centre has proposed to coax states to adopt the model bill, as it amounts “to shirking of responsibility by the Centre”. Shifting the burden of financing the Right to Education Bill would put a further strain on the states already scarce resources. The Centre collects a 2% education cess to finance elementary education.

In mid-June, secretary, elementary education (now redesignated school education) Champak Chatterjee had written to state education secretaries seeking their views on the model bill. Initially given three weeks, states have now asked for an extension to consider the Bill and its implications.

A view articulated in early July by the then West Bengal school education principal secretary D Chakrabarti, “Our views have been sought, and we have begun the process of discussion at various levels. The model bill has enormous implications, and we need to understand whether the state has the resources, management ability.”

The fiscal carrot was dangled by the Centre is making the states see red. To ensure that states adopt the model bill from the Eleventh plan, the Centre said that it would provide 75% funding for elementary education for states, which adopt the model bill, while those that don’t will receive only 50% of the funding as per the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the states and Centre for the universalisation of education programme.

Even as states are not receptive to the Centre’s “virtual arm twisting”, they say that it is quite obvious which way the Centre expects the states to go.

State education secretaries have argued that this move is not much of an incentive, as the Mid-term appraisal of the Tenth Plan accepts that the funding for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (the universal elementary school education programme) would continue to be on the 75:25 sharing basis till the end of the programme (that is ’10).

“The Government of India needs to come through. It was the Centre which moved a legislation to make education a fundamental right, why should the states have to bear the burden?

If they felt that the Centre could not afford it, then they could have let education continue to be a directive principle. Instead of offering states a 75:25 sharing ratio, the Centre should offer 90:10 sharing ratio in that case,” said a state education official.

State education secretaries argue that fiscal pie of the state has been gradually shrinking, what with the move to VAT, and the cut in sales tax on petroleum and petro-goods. In such a situation, the additional burden of financing elementary education seem too much to expect.

“They want education to have a second charge on the state’s finances after law & order. This is not feasible. States already bear the burden of financing secondary and most of higher education. With the success of SSA, the investment in these areas is going to increase, taking on additional won’t be possible.”