Financing Right to Education 2009
Anugula N. Reddy
Assistant Professor, Department of EMIS
NUEPA, 17-B, Sri Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi-110016
E-mail: anreddy@nuepa.org, anugula.reddy@gmail.com
RTE-2009: A Culmination of Long Journey
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Provision of Free and Compulsory Education to
All Children till Fourteen Years of Age as
Directive Principle of Constitution (Article 45)
Inadequate quantitative expansion,
deteriorating infrastructure, declining quality,
persistent inequalities
Though many norms and parameters were
specified to realize the provision of Free and
Compulsory Education but these lack legal
sanctity
No mechanism to monitor the implementation
and progress
RTE-2009: A Culmination of Long Journey
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The Unnikrishnan Judgment delivered by supreme
court of India galvanized the efforts to universalize
elementary education and put it as high priority agenda
in policy debates
Following Unnikrishnan judgment the civil society put
enormous pressure on Government to amend the
Constitution to make elementary education a
fundamental right in its own right
Relenting to the pressures the Government of India
amended the Constitution to make elementary
education a right of children aged 6-14 years (Article
21 (A)
The right shall come into force from the date of
notification of an Act specifying various aspects of
provision of free and compulsory education. RTE 2009
was enacted and implemented from April 2011
RTE-2009: A Culmination of Long Journey
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The Act purportedly intended to specify
norms and standards and targets with
regard to provision of Free and Compulsory
Education
However many of them left to be defined by
appropriate authorities (provincial
governments, local authority or professional
bodies) or imprecisely defined
• Definition of school –schedule but items can be
added or deleted through an executive order
• Definition of teacher and qualifications to
become teacher by NCTE
• Adequacy teaching learning material available in
school, etc
Financing RTE
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Financing universal elementary education
as a fundamental right requires paradigm
shift
• The state can no longer take excuse of
scarcity of resources, fiscal capacity, etc
• This raises questions particularly how to
determine the adequacy of resource
• Shifts in criteria from financing from equity
to adequacy (in US) – linking with outputs
Financing RTE
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Criterion to Examine the Adequacy of
Resource allocation to UEE
• Proportion of GDP/GNP
• Policy Recommendations like Kothari Commission
recommendation to allocate public resources to
education to the tune of 6 per cent of GNP; which
was reiterated nearly by all committees
subsequently
• Latest policy recommendations to apportion 3 per
cent of GNP to universal elementary education, 1.5
per cent to secondary education and the remaining
1.5 per cent to higher and technical education
(Majumdar Committee, 1999, 2005; CABE
Financing RTE
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Norm Based Criteria (Majumdar 1999,
CABE Committee on RTE 2005, NUEPA
2009)
• Resource requirements may be estimated by
different components of RTE – warding off
dilution of commitments
• The Estimated resource requirements can be
used to safeguard any dilution of norms and
standards specified in the Schedule of the Act
and items.
Financing RTE
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Criterion to Examine the Adequacy of
Resource allocation to UEE
• Estimating Resource requirements on the
basis of norms of RTE
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Taking stock of current status, identify gaps and
resource required to fill the gaps
Estimating-Total, Item wise, State wise, Central
and State Shares
Financing RTE
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Some estimates
• Rs. 1200 thousand million over 10 years constituting
a little over 3 per cent of GNP (Majumdar committee
1999)
• Over Rs 2000 to 4000 thousand million over five
years constituting about 3 to 3.5 per cent of GNP
(CABE Committee, 2005)
• About Rs. 2000 million over five years constituting
less than 3 per cent of GNP (NUEPA, 2009)
The 3% GNP arrived by various committees
may be bottom-line-any additional resources
required may have to be allocated from budget
other than without cutting other levels of
Financing RTE
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Some tensions
• Federal Relations
 All layers of government are responsible
 Central Government to estimate resource
requirements from time to time
 Central Government to refer to President
to include allocations to RTE under
Finance Commission and decide a formula
to share resource burden with provincial
governments in consultation
Financing RTE
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Some Tensions
 Notwithstanding above the Act places the
entire responsibility squarely on provincial
government
 Limited capacity of provincial government
and constrained by Acts relating to
budgetary deficit
 As several components are left to be
defined by appropriate authorities, these
dilute the commitments subsequently
• Financing through cess-Less support from
general budgetary support
Per cent of GNP to Education
4.50
4.00
3.50
3.00
2.50
2.00
1.50
1.00
Elementary Education
Education
As per cent Total Budget
15.5
15.0
14.5
14.0
13.5
13.0
12.5
12.0
11.5
11.0
10.5
10.0
9.5
9.0
8.5
8.0
7.5
7.0
6.5
6.0
5.5
5.0
4.5
4.0
education
Elementary Education
1990- 1991- 1992- 1993- 1994- 1995- 1996- 1997- 1998- 1999- 2000- 2001- 2002- 2003- 2004- 2005- 2006- 2007- 200891
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