India's new laws cause a storm in education and government

RNW, 29 April 2011, by Johan van Slooten 

(Photo by Deshgujarat)

Two bills that were introduced recently by the Indian government are causing chaos in education and government circles.

The Right to Information Act helps people in the struggle against corruption while the Right to Education Bill enables more poor children to go to school. But not everybody is happy with how the bills work.

Both bills have been implemented to cut India’s crippling corruption and inequality. But, while both are seen as revolutionary steps by the government, they are proving difficult to implement in day-to-day life.

Impact

Dutchman Sebastian Grüschke works as a GP in the northern city of Dehradun. On Wereldnet, a programme produced by Radio Netherlands Worldwide’s Dutch department, he said that the Right to Information Act has had an overwhelming impact on authorities.

“It only costs 10 Rupees to hand in a request of any kind to a government organisation and they’re obliged to reply within 30 days. If they don’t, they can be taken to court.”

He says the law has already proven to be an effective way of getting things done. There are NGOs, for instance, which can now retrieve more funds than before.

Demand

“There’s an organisation called Mountain Children, which reaches out to poor children in rural areas who don’t have sufficient access to education. There are hardly any teachers or school books available, while there are sufficient funds being held by the authorities. Mountain Children has now taught the children to use the law and to demand from the local government that these budgets be made available.”

And, Mr Grüschke adds that the results were incredibly fast.

“Within a month, the school had obtained new books and teachers. Before the law, this money would simply be held back by corrupt government authorities.”

Apprehensive

As a GP working for a semi-governmental health facility, Mr Grüschke has had to deal with the new Right to Information Act as well. “This was an ex-husband of one of our colleagues who wanted to know how much she earned, as he needed that information for the alimony,” Mr Grüschke says. “But such a private matter is obviously not what this Act is meant for. But authorities are definitely apprehensive about the new law.”

Poor children in public schools?

The new Right to Education Bill has also had a huge impact in India. The law stipulates that education is mandatory for every child between the ages of 6 and 14, and the government must pay for those who can’t afford it.

“What makes this bill quite revolutionary is that it’s now obligatory for private schools to accept children from poor classes, even if their parents can’t pay for it. This is to relieve the public school system which is already bursting at the seams.”

Culture clash

“It’s a real culture clash in India. The private schools are obviously not very happy with it, as this could mean that the child of rich parents could be sitting next to a poor shoemaker’s son.”

Some private schools have threatened legal action, saying the government can’t interfere with them because they are private. Other schools have come up with a compromise: they will accept poor children, but they’ll be separated from the other pupils.

Mr Grüschke has his doubts whether this new law will really work, but he says: “It has already put the Indian educational system on its head and that’s unheard of here.”