Good evening friends, I would like to thank Rahul Devanji for calling me here and also Shreyas and believe me, I mean it's really humbling to know that we all thinking around the same thing and we are at the same platform, all of us are thinking and we are in such different parts of the country thinking and having the same thought and now because of social media we are all able to get it all together and actually see it happening. I never thought I would get a platform to talk about right to education, seriously because I have seen the fallout what has been happening. I work with children with dyslexia, children with learning disabilities, for last 17 years I have been working.

In Mumbai, we have a certifying centre, the state level certifying centre. Having worked there, I have seen more than 35,000 children with learning disabilities and the trend post RTE has been very disturbing and we will be discussing that in detail. I would say that we Indians feel a lot about education, even as a paediatrician, the first year of life, the children, the parents come and ask us which school is the best in the neighbourhood.

When we Indians move abroad, the first thing we find is good schools, neighbourhoods with good schools. Is it genetic for Indians or is it years of conditioning? Before I move on to how the education evolved in India, I would like to mention a little thing about how many of us have read this book called as a beautiful tree? Yes, okay. This is an amazing book which talks about education system pre-British era and what happens in the education system pre-British era.

We had in certain areas literacy rate as high as 70%. Every village had a school which was something like Ekal Vidyalayas, this is what we had. We had teachers, one or two teachers, we had range of subjects which were being taught and if we compare to what was happening in Britain during that time, in 1801, the Britain actually had only 3300 schools overall.

In 1850s, they had 46000 schools while we had not less than 1 lakh schools only in the Bengal and Bihar as per the Governor, the British Governor Adam Williams. Similarly, in Punjab and Madras also, there was school. So I mean we had an education system which was far superior and that got destroyed and that is what even Gandhiji referred as the beautiful tree and that actually got destroyed in less than 100 years and it was replaced by the modern education system in a foreign language with completely ignoring our scriptures and our value system and that's where we land today.

Anyways, we got independence. Around the Constitution Committee, that time also there was a little impetus to include education as a fundamental right. The literacy rate that time was only 12%.

We were struggling, we didn't have the means so it was put into the Directive Principles. It took around 20 years for the next National Education Policy to come in and that time again the education literacy rate was somewhere around 28-30%. What was thought was that there was a lot of disparity.

Now here I would like to say disparity as in the rural and urban divide was very huge. There was a lot of gender disparity which has actually stayed over the years. It has not gone away.

There is a discrepancy of around 20% and which has actually stayed. It has not gone away, even with a lot of effort. Marginalised section, there was a lot of disparity.

So what was the goal set in the education policy was, let's go to the villages. So 90% coverage was what was thought in the first policy and it was again thought that and formally it was adopted to have the 10 plus 2 plus 3 system of education. Two main results and it was expected to move on and improve.

What happened later? In 1976 we had this amendment wherein education became the concurrent list subject. Prior to that it was a stateless subject. So the responsibility of taking the education from the city to the village was entirely of the state government which the states were not able to do.

Hence it was taken into consideration that let's have it in the concurrent list. So the state makes the policies, monitors and also takes the financial responsibility for education. So following that what happened? Then we had the 86 policy, national education policy which was reviewed and this is the first time.

Of course more or less the goals were the same. Universal elementary education reaching to the most remotest place as possible. 90% coverage, one school in the areas of one kilometre was what was thought about and again but that's the first time the recommendation to include education as a fundamental right was again put forth.

That's why it becomes very very important for us. 86 amendment all of us know actually made education as a fundamental right. Numerous programs were put in.

We are all aware of these programs. We had this, I mean a very very descriptive and elaborate program called as Sarva Siksha Bhyan in 2002. We had Madhavik Siksha Bhyan in 2005-06, may be 9 and then we had Uchchita Siksha program.

So the lot of programs which have been on paper and implemented. But what actually happened? What was happening to the literacy rates let's see by that time? So we gradually moved up the literacy rate up there and we reached to 74%. So it was around 6-8% is what we moved roughly every 10 years.

Every census we moved this much. And the gender disparity still stays. It was 18% to start with and we are still at 16%.

So we have not really moved much over there. What did we do with the GDP? Our GDP earlier was 0.64% in 1951 and we have moved and we are bordering somewhere around 4%. Most of the developed countries would put in 6-8% of their GDP in the education sector.

And there has been a lot of impetus to increase it above 6%. That's what has been asked for in more and more policies and we are trying to reach there probably. Then what happened? How did this right based approach came in? That is very very important for us to understand.

What happened was that India also participated in education for all UNESCO initiative. Wherein all the members a common educational, global educational goal was set in. That we will all reach universal elementary education.

Basic education sab bachcho ko milega by 2000 year. All the members who were there ratified and they were given instructions to go and implement it. Understand your system, make changes and we will meet in 2000.

When we met back in 2000 our literacy rate was only 53%. So we were never close to 100% there. And I think if I go back and see what was happening to the 2001 census also we were 64%.

Besides that in 1992 India ratified to UNCRC that is UN Convention for Rights of Children. In which education has been put as one of the rights for the child. Okay.

And interestingly the only two countries who have still not ratified to UNCRC are anybody? US and South Sudan. Somalia also ratified in I think in 2015. Okay.

So here we move on. Now then the universal goal was revised to 2010. And then it was thought that even that doesn't seem possible.

So what was done? There was the next goal which was universal retention by 2020. So kya ho gaya? Education was replaced by retention. And that's the objective what our RT is also presenting over a period of time.

Okay. So we come down from that. Then in 2002 as it became our main, we took it as a fundamental right, the education.

There was need for a law to enact it. So RTE had been under discussion from 2004 onwards on and off it was presented. The state said we cannot implement it.

There is a lot of financial burden which will be on the states and hence we cannot do it. So it went, it was tabulated back and forth. Earlier the reservation for the marginalised was thought to be 50% which they reduced and brought it down to 25%.

So we will move on to and talk about a little about that. Besides that before we move on to the right to education which is what I will be discussing more in detail. Let's see what happened to the minority institutions.

Arihant you will be talking a lot about 93rd amendment and all of that. But just to give us this that 93rd amendment was brought in wherein the minority institutes were exempted from the state reservation quota which was earlier minority as well non-minority unaided private institutions were exempted from the state quota which was by a landmark judgment in 2005. In 2006 an amendment was brought and that will be dealt separately.

I will not get into the details of it. Following that and to decide who are the minority institute there was a national minority commission was instituted in 2010. The reason I have put in the slide is it was made in 2010 and by the time the 2011 census says that Hindus are already minority in so many states and that commission by its own structure cannot have a Hindu as a member while they decide on the minority status.

So that was a little thing I wanted to mention before I move on. So what happened? We had right to education act. So it's like a beautiful framework.

That's what I was discussing with people before we started off. Looks very nice. Follows all the principles of education.

It gives a right based approach. So it becomes a state's responsibility. Abhi government ki zimmedaari ho gayi ki har bache ko padhana hai.

So kaise padhaenge? Har bache ko school me leke jaayenge. That is what exactly happened. But they realised by this time only the government sector cannot do it.

I'll tell you, I'll come to it and tell you why the government sector itself cannot do it. Now, so they said that 25% of the children would be taken from the marginalised section by the private schools and that would be reimbursed in a due course of time. There was also a provision of any child who has been out of school.

Koi bache school kabhi nahi gaya hai. The whole aim is to get everybody in school. We are looking at universal retention.

Har bache school me jaana shiye. That was the whole aim, right? So if the child has not gone to school, we put him in a classroom. How do we decide the classroom? Uske age ki basis pe.

We decide that if the child is 13 year old, probably he goes in the 7th or 8th standard. If the child is 10 years old, he goes in the 5th standard. Irrespective of the learning level, right? So that is something which was also put in the clause.

No detention till 8th standard. So once the child gets into the education system, he does not move out till he finishes his elementary education, right? So that was one more thing which was put on. No detention till 8th standard.

Because elementary education hum consider kar rahe hai 6 to 14 years of age and so till 8th standard. So once a child goes into a primary school, does not move out to the secondary school, so there will be no detention of the children and hence we are trying to retain the children, okay? So then now let us see how RTE has impacted all of this. Now availability factor if we look at, availability basically when we are looking at this, the availability means the buildings, the infrastructure, the physical infrastructure which is required for proper learning.

Now RTE is like something like a quality check we have. We have NABH accreditation for the hospitals. This is what something happened with RTE.

RTE came out with very standard quality norms as regards to building structure, separate toilets for boys and girls, playground facility, boundary wall around the school, kitchen sheds. Toh bahut saare points ki unhone bola hai aapka agar school aapko rakhna hai toh ye ye points follow hone chahiye. Ye ye aapka requirement hai.

Aur aapko requirement within 3 years poora karna hai. Jab se jab bhi ek state leke RTE ko chalu karega, 3 saal ke andar aapka sab requirement poora hona chahiye. Right? So that is what they did.

Now then we move on to, they also gave norms about the quality of teachers. Toh teacher ka requirement kya hai? So it has to be qualified teachers, unka training hona chahiye, unka salary hona chahiye, up to a certain level, increase in the salary hona chahiye, teacher student ratio define hona chahiye, classroom teacher ratio define hona chahiye. So there is a lot of norms and so the schools have to comply with that and agar nahi comply karte hain, in case of non-compliance, there is fines and penalties for the same.

Okay? So this is what it did when it came to the physical infrastructure. So here we go. So every child should be given between the age of 6 to 14 years, have a right for free and compulsory education.

Section 15 talks about procedure for withdrawal of recognition, allowances and salaries, services and salaries, allowances of the teachers, training for the training of the teachers also and the state government is authorized to make rules in every stage in order to carry out these, these provisions of that. Okay? Within 3 years the school should gain recognition and agar nahi hota hai toh usko 1 lakh ki penalty hogi, yeh 10,000 per day takka fine hai. Okay? This is what came out in the, this is all written, this is from the act.

Now let's look at the level of schools, what is happening to schools. Now when we look at the schools, we have around 14 lakh schools in India as per the census 2014-15. This is all data from MHRD, so it's all available in public domain.

Now, so out of these 14 lakh schools, around 80% of the schools are government schools. Okay? Then we had 20% are private sector schools. Okay? But that 80% of the schools are catering to 60% of the enrollments.

So 60% students go to this 80% schools and 20% of schools are catering to 40%. Okay? So the participation of private sector is huge right now. Okay? Now, then we go on to and look at some, now when we look at the school types, the primary schools are around 57%, the upper primary is 6th, 7th, 8th, then you have the primary with upper primary.

So the schools from 1st to 8th standard, that's around 29% and then you have only 14% schools are the secondary schools which are 9th standard onwards. So even if you do 100% retention and enrollment, you don't have infrastructure to cater to that need. You have 57% schools which are primary, only primary schools.

You have another 19% schools with primary and secondary and only 10%. So against 57% even if we say, we only have 29% of schools which have upper primary. So even if you want to retain all of them, where are they going to go? Because there are not enough schools and 14% for the secondary.

Now school availability, then it's a data for 2009 comparative data, the number of schools and 2015, the primary schools have marginally increased. And similarly the upper primary, but they are still half. You know when you look at the values, it's 8,14,000 primary against 4,18,000 upper primary schools.

Right? So this is what is happening. Secondary schools are way low and senior secondaries are of course very low. So even if there is a marginal increase, there is no way we can accommodate the universal retention here.

That's the point I wanted to put across. Now look at what is the condition as regards to infrastructure in these government schools. 92% of the schools have boys' toilet, 84% have girls' toilet.

Interestingly only 44% have a hand wash facility next to the toilet. I mean it's so atypical that I had to put it here. 62% schools have boundary walls.

Schools with playground are 58%. Electricity connection in only 52% of the schools. Computers in 43%.

Functional computers out of that 43% probably the 63% have it. Midday meals are provided in 88.6% schools. Kitchen shed which is one of the rules, infrastructure norms for RTE is only in 75% of schools.

Now this is what is happening to the government schools or the recognised schools if we put it across. Now what is the impact of RTE then? One, the norms which are available are not pan-India norms. They are pan-India norms as in they are the same norms for a small village versus Mumbai or Delhi.

Right? So what happens, I mean obviously the space constraints, the space value, everything is different. You cannot have the same norms for across the country. So there has to be revision of norms in case you are thinking.

What also happens is there is a very disturbing trend of children being pulled out of government schools and put into the budget private schools. As high as 75% of children are attending private schools in a recent survey in the city of Mumbai and Patna. Mumbai, I have seen the municipal schools shutting down.

They don't have enrolments. The teachers are actually given incentives to go and get children. One, because they are in vernacular medium.

Second, the quality of education is very low and we would see that quality a little later in other slides. So what is happening now, these children obviously had a choice, the parents had a choice of putting them into a government school which is free, which is also in the neighbourhood and a budget private school which is also in the neighbourhood but is charging somewhere around 200, 300, 400 rupees fees per month. But parents chose that.

Now with RTE we will have a shutdown of these schools. One, because they cannot afford to have that 25% children from the marginalised section. Maybe their profit margins are only that much so it makes them unviable.

The RTE norms are not practical to be applied. So quite a few schools are getting into voluntary closure. Now we don't have a consolidated data but there are 7000 schools in Maharashtra has been given notice, served notice under RTE.

Around 1200 schools in Haryana and Punjab have closed down. Around 600 schools in Hyderabad has closed down. So there has been a lot of reports from here and there.

Of course a lot of this data is available. At a conservative measure or just a, we feel that at least 10 to 15,000 schools will close down if RTE is implemented strictly. Which would mean at least 30 lakh children out of school.

Even if we take an enrolment of 200 per school. Most of these budget schools will have 150, 160, 180, 220 sort of children. That's the population they have.

So even if we take a ballpark figure of 200, 30 lakh children will go out of the system when all these schools will be closed. Why they were in the school and not in a government school is something which is debatable. So what option will parents have? Either we send them to a government school which we had rejected earlier.

We have rejected it. That reason is the same. Their infrastructure is also not very good.

That we have seen already in the slide. Their infrastructure is not very good. Their quality of education is even worse than the smaller schools which were there.

Or the other option is minority run secular schools. Right? Which are imparting education to our children. So minority run schools exempted from RTE as per 93rd amendment.

So they can provide, they will be the only stakeholders left in the private sector to provide education. Or the third option is, if this particular school your child is going in survives RTE, fees will be raised there. Because that 25% which is not getting the fees, free kids are coming, somebody has to pay for it.

So fees will be raised. Plus if they have to buy a place, increase the classrooms, make a playground, and if they can actually do it, the cost of that will have to be borne by parents and children. So the cost will rise.

So choice is now three. Either you send your child to a government school, or you send them to a minority run secular institute, where we know what happens. We are all sitting here and we don't need to get into the details as to what happens over there.

And the third option is you continue in the same school at a higher fee. So those are the three options which the parents would have now. And another point here, 80% of schools are government schools.

They are exempted from RTE. If we take 3% of minority institutes, 83% which are religious minority and linguistic minority, Hindu linguistic minority and religious minority, 3% or it could be probably a little more. Now if we have, so what happens, 83% of the schools are exempted from a particular law.

Then why have a law which only targets 17-18% of the people? Isn't it? It is literally, I have made a law, but 8 people will not follow it. Only 2 people have to follow that law. How is it going to make any sizable impact on the quality of education or infrastructure also? When you have exempted 83%, right? So from this availability, we move on to the quality aspect.

Now, acceptability is actually the quality check. So there are two provisions, three provisions rather I want to talk about, sections I want to talk about it. One is special provision for children not admitted.

Since I said earlier, everybody has to be brought back to the school. So what has to be done? Jo bhi age mein bacha hai, usko hum classroom mein daal denge. Right? That was the whole aim.

I have a little experience here. I work with 5 destitute homes. In one of the homes in Lucknow where we work, the first year we started, we picked up 30-30 children and informal education in that home we started providing.

Now these children did well. So by the end of the year, we started thinking that inko hum structured, proper school mein daal sakte hain. So we started looking for a budget school close by because destitute, government run destitute home ke bachche hai, we can't send them very far away.

So there are a lot of logistic issues. Now these 10 children, we identified and we said this year we'll try with 10 children, next year we'll add on children. Now these 10 children, out of them 9 children, all these children are more than 10 years of age.

So when we went to school, that was somewhere around 2012-13, so the principal was very well aware of the RTE. So the principal told us, ma'am we'll put the children as per their age. I said no, they won't be able to cope up.

And we had to convince her again and again and I made the children do certain stuff and see it over there that these children cannot cope up. It's just not possible for them to cope up. So the principal reluctantly agreed and we put these children in 3rd standard and 2nd standard.

Though these children were 11-12 years of age. One of the kids had recently got transferred to that home from Noida aur Noida mein woh 7th standard attend kar raha tha in one of the schools. So the child looked a little bigger also, maybe around 14-15.

So he was also a little reluctant to go to a lower standard. Toh humne usko 7th mein hi wapas admission kara diya. Result kya hua, my children who went to 3rd standard were able to cope up.

We worked on these children and we were able to get them double promotion. Toh yeh bachche jo 3rd mein the wo 5th mein aa gaye. But jis bachche ko humne 7th mein admission karaya tha, he dropped out.

Because he was feeling that learning gap. Main jinki baat kar rahi ho, wo bilkul hi marginalized bachche hain. Jo ki shayad ek baar school se nikal gaye toh 5 saal school bhi nahi gaye.

But those children you can't put them as per their age. Because they just won't be able to cope up. Right? That's exactly what happened.

So now when you are talking of this provision, I have a strong objection to it. When I say that, that they will not be able to cope up. There are huge learning gaps.

Now who is supposed to bridge this gap? RTE says the teacher is supposed to bridge the gap. Honestly tell me, which teacher in a regular school, without any skill, without any training, is going to actually bridge this gap? Aap mujhe bataye. Teacher ke paas na time hai, na skill hai, na inclination hai.

Kuch bhi nahi hai to actually work on these children. And these children are more likely to drop out again. And wo bachche school se bahar hain, uske kaafi logistic issues hain.

It's not only that the children didn't want it to go. There were lot of issues. Even if we pull them and put them back, now the child factor, the child will be so demotivated that he will not stay in the system for long.

Then we move on to the next one. No child admitted in the school shall be held back in any class or expelled from school till the completion of elementary education. Now I have a very very strong objection to this.

My first objection to this particular section is that whatever happened, this RTE came into picture. Everybody knew about this provision in the first. I don't know how.

So within the first year, baaki structural norms nahi malum hai logon ko. 25% quota bhi nahi malum hai. Uske liye school management is worried.

The parents are not worried. The children are not worried. The teachers are not worried.

But this clause, the day it came, there was such a huge hue and cry about it that it was well publicised. I personally feel that there was a ground prepared by disproportionate media coverage of suicide cases. And hence, it was shown that this is to take the stress out of the system.

I personally feel that every suicide is a personal tragedy. But a suicide of less than 10 children against 20 crore children in school is very disproportionate. Right? So it's not that huge a problem as it was projected.

So what happened? Now how did parents, children and teachers looked at this right to education? They looked at it as right to, of the child to move to the next class irrespective of learning. So right to education was perceived as the right of the child to move to the next class without learning. That is exactly what happened.

Following that, what do we, then let's go back to the data and see what actually happened to the enrolments. So enrolments, when we look at the data, we see the third year. I have compared 5, 6, 9, 10 which is exactly the RTE when it was implemented and 5 years down RTE.

Now the enrolment is actually dipped down if you see. And we are talking of enrolment. This is not retention.

This is not children passing out. This is the enrolment. Okay? So this is leveled by enrolment.

Primary, upper primary, it increased a little bit. Secondary, it increased a little bit. But it's all still less than 50% of the primary.

So we could still retain the children in the primary. Let's look at the, now here what happens is, this is the gross enrolment ratio. Again here what we see, we see the trends which are falling.

But overall there has been a little jump. You see from primary to secondary, there is a huge dip. This is all enrolment.

Then we talk of retention. As per the NEP 2016 data itself, now primary retention was 83%. Upper primary, which is up to the 8th standard, the retention has been 67%.

Which means 4 out of every 10 children enrolled left the school without finishing primary education. So did, you know, no detention policy actually helped in retention. It did not.

Right? Then let's look at the quality check. So let's look at the quality of education. What happened? This is all LASER data.

Now we are looking at 2006, 10 and 14 data. What happened? Now this is standard 3rd children who could read at least 1st standard level textbook. Right? This moved from, and there is all India data, government schools and the private schools.

This is huge. You see the yellow bars are way up. So definitely says that the quality of education even in the budget private schools is much higher.

Right? As compared to the government counterparts. That's the reason children are moving. Right? Then, all India we were still not more than 50% at any point of time.

Even in 2006, we were around 48%. And, but the private schools we were at 58% which has stayed more or less the same. 58%, then there is 57%, 59%.

But, in the government schools in 2004 you see the dip. From 48% it's come down to 31%. Okay? This is what happened to education.

Went down, obviously. That's what we are trying to say. The quality of education only around 31% children could read a book of 1st standard who were in 3rd standard.

So, what has happened? These budget schools still maintain the level of, the quality of education but it dipped a lot in the government run schools. Okay? Then we move on to others. This is 5th standard child who could read a 3rd grade book.

Here again, it was 51% to start with. Went down to 48% by 14. Government schools again, there was a huge dip seen in the government schools as compared.

The private schools more or less stayed the same. This is the 3rd standard child who could do at least subtraction. So, 3rd standard child, again, the dip here is lot more even in the private school.

But, the government school, only 17.3% children can actually do that. Similar data for the 5th standard who could do division sums. So, this is exactly what happened.

So, let's move on from this. So, our experience also, since we are working with these destitute homes, nearly 40% of the children in the 6th standard could not even recognize alphabets. All.

All the alphabets in any of the languages. So, it's Hindi, Marathi and English. All the 3 languages, they could not recognize all alphabets at the 6th standard level.

But, then these are the children who are really out of school. Right? And, we have now started stimulating them. 20% could only cope up and 40% were only at the word stage.

So, alphabet ho gaya, words ho gaya and basic addition, subtraction was achieved. Now, what happened post this thing? The impact on children was, since it was very well publicized, the children knew whatever happens, the teacher cannot detain me. Right? So, what happens? The motivation level went very down.

Please understand, children don't think like us. Children have very poor abstraction. Very concrete thinking.

They are at the non-operational stage till around 13-14 years of age. So, they till 8th standard, they have no clue as to what is happening. If I ask a 12 year old, what will you do after 10 years? You know what he is going to tell me.

I'll be 22. This is how children respond. This is how children are.

And we took away. And it was a time with the media boom, with the internet, lot of distractions. I feel sad for our children.

We were luckily, I mean, born in the era where we didn't have so many distractions. So, we didn't know what to do. So, we might as well study.

Right? But our children have too many things to look at and it's a disadvantage for our children. Right? So, then we move on from here. What happened to the parents? Now, parents typically move to the entitlement approach.

That's what I was talking to the gentleman here. Initially, the first reaction was they were very relaxed, happy. No failing, we are all happy.

Right? The educated parents were watchful. So, they started figuring out the children are not learning. Kahi kuch miss out hai.

See, if my child goes to school and fifth standard mein usko second ka table nahi aata, I'll be worried. But, agar jo parent educated nahi hain, but usne bachche ko private school mein bheja, achche school mein bheja. Even, probably a big school like DPS aur DAV mein bheja usne bachche ko.

But, he himself is not empowered to monitor what learning is happening. Toh, kya hua the gap and jo government school mein gaye, wahan pe quality of education, we already know what is happening. Right? So, ye jo hamara divide hai in the society that became even more deeper.

So, the educated person ka bachcha educated raha. Jo uneducated uska bachcha mein learning problems aa rahe hain and we don't even know what is happening. Right? So, that is where the divide became even more stronger.

So, it did not uplift all the children at the same level. That is what happened. Then, we look at what happened to the impact of teachers and students.

Teachers initially were aghast. Believe me, aghast with this provision. They didn't know what to do.

So, since it was very well publicized, everybody knew that the child cannot be retained. So, the attitude of the teacher changed over a period of time. Our teachers, we must understand, are not so empowered lot.

Though, there are lot of teachers training program, which are more in the government sector than in private sector. And, a lot of training is happening. In spite of that, of course, we have very poor quality of education.

That's a different story altogether. But, when the teachers and principals, I have sat with the principals, I work a lot with schools and the principals. Principals say that when we call the parents, parents don't want to come.

So, because earlier, at least, we had this rule that two times the child is retained in a class, the school could throw the child out, give the TC to the child. Now, no fear like that was left with the parents. So, the parents stopped coming to schools, parents stopped paying attention to what is happening to the child and eventually, and the teachers would say, if I have a child in 5th standard, who doesn't know subtraction.

It's not my fault. It is the fault of the previous teacher. So, hence, the owning up completely stopped.

This is what happened with the teachers. Now, we move on. Now, interestingly, all the minority schools take exemptions from the RTE norms, but they still followed the no detention policy.

So, you pick up what is convenient to you, you drop what is not convenient to you. Right? When we move on to what happened now, what we started seeing, since I was seeing children with learning problems were referred to me, what we started seeing is that maximum children were held back in the 9th standard. Because till 8th, everybody passed.

There was no learning happening, but everybody was getting promoted. Then, in 9th standard, the children were detained. So, what were the choices? Now, staying back in a school was not a norm, in a class was not a norm.

We had a lot of children who failed and who, you know, then ultimately got integrated with the next class. It was all okay. Abhi ye nahi ho rata.

So, abhi ek bachche ko rokhna was a big prestige issue for the parents and the psychological burden on the child. The child will get depressed. The child will have a lot of stress.

It is shaming. Iske liye bachcho ko private 10th standard ke classes mushroom outweigh and a lot of children started going and doing this private SSC or private 10th standard board. Besides this, a lot of children also moved to open school.

There is an alternative education board, National Institute of Open Schooling. So, a lot of children moved to that. But, we have to understand what happened to these children.

So, even if they did 10th, what would happen later? A recent there was a statement by our honourable minister Mr. Javadekar saying that 40% of our engineering graduates are employable and it made a lot of headlines. Now, the children who are already engineering graduate are the children who are pre-ITE probably because 10th kiya, 2 saal kiya aur phir 4 saal kiya. Toh 6 saal pehle unhone 10th kiya, 8th tak kiya.

Or maybe 8 years before they were in 8th standard. So, they were not victim of this automatic promotion any which way. And, these are the children who are not employable.

Imagine what would happen to our children when they come there. I mean, it's such a scary picture. What I had seen was while learning does not happen, just 2 minutes I'll dwell upon and then move on.

There are multiple causes for learning not happening. It could be something, somebody who has dyslexia, somebody who has understanding kam hai, cognitive ability kam hai. Toh woh slow learner, mild intellectual capacity mein a jaate hain.

So, they are children with that also. Environmental causes thoda hota hai. One fraction will have environmental causes like this policy.

There could be medical conditions. There could be, I mean at least 20 reasons I can talk about jiski wajah se learning arrest hoti hai. Now, learning is a very complex phenomena.

Kis level pe arrest hui hai? Kya karan hai? Agar hum nahi janenge toh, we cannot let the child learn further. So, what happens is, we've had children jo 9th standard mein hai aur unka learning level is only 3rd standard. We've had children and when you talk to the parents of these children, you should see how they feel.

It's like literally the end of the life because with a learning gap of 5 and 6 years, in 9th standard, there's nothing you can do about it. Even the best of the remedial teachers, the best of the schooling can do nothing about this child. And then, there is a social stigma ki 10th pass karana hai.

What happens after 10th standard? So, this is what is actually happening. So, for me, taking away the right to education has actually taken away the right to learning from my children. That's how I look at it.

Now, we move on to from this physical harassment bit. Do I have a slide on that? I don't think so. So, physical harassment, though I do not at any point of time advocate any kind of punishment to children.

I'm a very non-violent person. So, I would never ever advocate that. But, again, this is another thing which was publicized.

So, the result, what happened is the teachers do not have the authority to even close their door when the class is going on. So, kya hua? The children, and then we have inclusion. So, inclusion mein jitne bhi mere bache hain, they all started walking out of this classroom, walking here and there.

The classroom became very disruptive. Severe behavioral problems happened and the learning still went further down. That's all I have to say.

The teachers were not empowered. Agar punishment nahi dena hai, so what? Kuch toh karna padega to get discipline. So, were they taught how to discipline without any kind of physical punishment or mental harassment or just, you know, giving them some kind of things and that you better do well, sort of stuff.

Okay? So, we move on from this to the last bit of my talk which is accessibility and adaptability. Now, accessibility is, what we'll be talking later is, 25% of the underprivileged or marginalized children have to be included because accessibility means education should be available to all. All sections of society without any disparity.

Now, inclusive education was taken in later wherein the right to education was extended to children with all sorts of disabilities. Okay? So, now we move on to that and see what happens. We'll go on and see.

Now, when we talk of disability, according to the census 2011, we have only 2.2% people who are disabled. Okay? Now, this 2.2% people are nowhere close to the global 10% disability figure. So, the disability is supposed to be around 10% of the global figure and we are only able to detect 2.2% disability.

Last census was 2.1%. So, in 10 years, we only picked up 0.1% disability more. Okay? This is what is the status of disability. When we look at individual disabilities, dyslexia, on which I work, specialize, 10%, 8-10% of school-going children are found to have dyslexia.

Prevalence rates, global prevalence rates I am talking about, a lot of Indian studies. Autism is 1.2%. ADHD, hyperactive kids who cannot sit in class, that is a problem. That is a developmental disorder.

Around 5-7% of the children have. Now, if we put it all together, Down syndrome kids are there, which is 1 in 600 live births. So, there are so many conditions, neurological conditions, medical conditions which make a child disabled.

Right? So, there is a new act of disability. 31 types of disabilities are included which is going to be coming pretty soon in the final drafts. But earlier, we only restricted to 6 disabilities as per the RCI.

But okay, now we are moving ahead. So now, the cohort is 10% of disabled children have to be included in a classroom. Now, there will be a lot of people here also who are advocates of inclusive education but I would like to tell you when you go in a classroom, the teacher-student ratio is 40-50 students per teacher and you have an autistic child and you have a hyperactive child and you have 3 dyslexic children in the same class.

How will the teacher manage teaching all of them optimally? I have been witness to a court case wherein I was called as an expert. This was a child with autism in a very very elite school. Typically, after RTE the parents had this right based entitlement approach towards the whole issue.

This child has been in the same school since pre-primary and the school has scoped up. Now, this child is in 6th standard and what started happening now the child is getting disruptive. Now, he is not learning in the school because the school is not equipped to teach him.

There is no specialist who is going to teach an autistic child in a regular school. There is a shadow teacher who costs a lot. Parents have sent shadow teachers who sit with the child but you should see the child cannot understand what is happening in the class.

The teacher has to point then he starts writing. The teacher has to do the physical pointing then the child picks up the pen and starts writing. All this is fine.

After that, when recess happens gap occurs, lunch breaks occur there is so much noise that the child holds his ear and keeps rocking and making some noises. Now, this child, do you think he will learn in school? Why is the child sent to school? The first thing is, the objective is to learn. And now the parents are too busy fighting with the school and the court and going to the media and making a big show and cry about it that they have forgotten that they have to actually teach the child.

So, my recommendation to them was it's okay to keep the child in a regular school but I want the parents to do these things and submit reports every three months if they want to be in this system because the child ultimately has to learn. That's one child. When you work with children with down syndrome, what happens? These children are able to cop up till primary.

They can't do it after that because their IQ is low. Their IQ is in the range of a slow learner. IQ is 70.

Our normal IQ should be 90+. Now, when they reach upper primary, Maths concepts, vocabulary makes no sense to them. So, they are just not able to cop up.

So, what should be there in inclusion? Curriculum differentiation should be there. Separate curriculum should be there. Separate paper should be there.

So, we are started inclusion by the law without being actually ready for inclusion. That is exactly what has happened. Again, when we look at at which level we need to intervene, that is important.

One, the parents have to understand the basic aim has to be learning and it shouldn't be just a conflict situation which happened in this child. Second, the teachers have to be empowered. You see Sarvesh Iksha Abhiyan document if anybody has seen.

It beautifully writes down theory about all our disabilities. It has got beautiful checklist as annexure at the end of the document. But I can challenge a teacher probably in a small town maybe let's talk of Sitapur in UP.

Anybody knows where it is? It's a very small town. So, a teacher over there, a primary teacher over there versus a teacher in Mumbai. Do they have the same level of awareness? You have the same norms, you have the same inclusive education.

This child I am talking about is given a shadow teacher. There are two counsellors in the school and parents are supportive. But imagine at a district level or at a village level school, if you get inclusion what will happen? Are we ready for inclusion? I have nothing against inclusion.

Ultimately, what I suggest is the inclusion has to be paced. There could be nodal centres for particular disability. For example, if there is a centre in a district which we only handle on visual handicap.

So, there we can send all the visually challenged children from the district through the transport arranged by the state and that could be a centre for resource development, special educators, prevalence studies. We can do lots with one good nodal centre for each disability in each district rather than trying to have these children in every school. That is what I would suggest and again a lot of courses, we don't have rehab people.

In Maharashtra, state government has put in one counsellor in every school. Two special educators in every school. Where do we have special educators and teachers to actually go in and do the job there? So, there is a lot of disconnect happening there.

Now, this data I had actually picked up because I was planning to extend this. I know it's very less. You can't be seen but I will tell you the gist.

We are able to only pick up 0.2%. Out of the total children who went to school for their SSC, that's the 10th and 12th board exams, out of 30,000 only 600 odd were children with LD Certificate Learning Disability Certificate and it was only 0.2% is what we have picked up and this is the condition in Mumbai which I think is the dyslexia capital of the country. Seriously, the level of awareness which we have over there, thanks to Tare Zamee Pe and a lot of that, I mean media whatever said and done helps us. So, the post Tare Zamee Pe, I had lovely experience.

Everybody said my child is like Ishaan and everybody wanted a remedial teacher like Aamir Khan. Actually, people have come and demanded that. So, of course, that's not doable and it was very dramatic but yes, all intervention if given early makes a lot of difference, makes a lot of impact.

So, this is what we were able to achieve when it came to inclusion. Concluding remarks is the government as well as the minority institutes have to be included in RTE. Otherwise, if we are missing on to 83%, there is no point pushing the 17%.

The overall quality will never improve. Quality norms need to be revised for urban versus rural size and type of the school. No detention policy needs to be removed.

Children have to be admitted as per their academic level. What also gets missed on in no detention is that there is no early intervention happening. The children are not picked up early.

Nothing happens. No remediation happens for these children. Emphasis on teachers training.

Inclusion has to be done in a phased wise manner and prompt time bound fair compensation to the 25% marginalized children. If we could even get that in place, I think the schools will be okay with that. I think that's it.

Thank you. We begin one by one. So, let's pick up from the clause that you mentioned on the age appropriate admissions.

So, yes while RTE talks about age appropriate admission to children in the school, it does not say that you don't work for bringing the child to that level. So, it talks about bridge courses. It talks about number of provisions that are made by different state government and it actually asks the state government to come up with those provisions so that children are brought up to the level of their, I mean the required minimum level of learning which that age children should have.

It is not happening in practice is a different talk. But it actually says that it has to happen and then you admit them into that class. So, that's one point on that.

You mentioned about number of schools being closed down and the gap after primary and upper primary and secondary, senior secondary. Let me tell you government is doing lot of merging of schools. Because yes, there is, because of small schools and because of the problem in the teacher student ratio.

So, what they are doing? We are bringing down or closing down small schools with extremely low enrollment and merging them with senior secondary. So, gradually you will see lot of schools closing down but they are coming up as composite schools. So, they will be 1 to 12th.

They will not be 1 to 8 and then 9, 10 and then 11, 12. So, those things are being closed down and they are coming up. So, that was one data discrepancy I just wanted to tell you.

At times, I mean, it's both way people can see lot of people talk about the policies having, I mean pan India, I mean, there is no contextualization into it and we want to have different policies for different states. It is good to talk that way but when you have to plan at the central level, at the national level, if you have different policies for different states, as of now we have education being in the concurrent list, means state and centre both have their responsibility and because of that also there are so many discrepancies across states. You will find states which are performing so poorly and absolutely not fulfilling any norms.

At the other end, you see that there are states which are actually outperforming, I mean, where government schools are doing really well. Now, do you want to let them remain as they are by saying that okay, let this state do it on its own or you want to have a uniform policy and see that at least minimum norms every state has to meet. So, that is how I look at them and that is why we need to have some pan India I mean policies which are across for the country but states can based on their requirement or based on their reality, can really put in provisions or clauses.

That is the freedom that policy comes with. Do you want me to respond to this a little bit? Yeah, sure. Go ahead, please.

See, the thing is what I am talking about is rural and urban. Now, the space constraints which are in the metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore is nowhere close to what you would find in probably Jodhpur, Jaipur or probably when you go further down to Satara or Sangam. So, what I am talking of that depending on the you put the cities into different tiers.

Based on that, you could have some norms. I am not talking of I perfectly understand what you want to say but does this mean that a city like Delhi should be allowed to run a school in a three storied building so one story can become a school. Do we want to say that? Because it is metro, I will not agree to it.

Is the government following those norms? It should be. Is the minority institution following the norms? If the norms are not followed by 83% of the population. So, if the norms are not being followed, we need to have an accountability system in place.

We cannot say that we do away with the norms. We need to relax the norms based on the requirement or based on the place. That's what I am trying to say.

Because this is not going to. It has to be a phased manner. You cannot have all or none.

Because it is going to impact the children. It is going to impact the budget schools and we have enough evidence to show the quality of education in the government school is nowhere close to the private schools. So, that is what we are trying.

We are trying to basically come and say that either you pull this up. All the norms have to apply to government schools also. That's when the parents will take it as an option to send the child to a government school.

Right? All norms have to be applied to all schools is something I agree. But they cannot be separate for rural schools. They cannot be separate for urban schools.

Because norms have to be based on the quality standards which you want for your children. They cannot be based on rural or urban. We can't say that rural children will have little less or because the context is different.

Yes, that cannot be the case. I think people want to get into it. Children as well.

Delhi government schools are often two stories. The new schools which have come up in Delhi government are actually two and three stories. Existing schools also, MCD and Delhi government are often two stories.

And there are huge number of students. It was honestly a shock to me because I am not from Delhi. But the number of students in each Delhi school government, senior secondary school, is like 6,000 to 7,000.

Sometimes even 8,000 in two shifts. So it's like a large number. And like what ma'am was saying, it's a huge, huge issue.

There is I mean, we all are discussing this but I just had to interject that this is happening. As far as I know, there is no research which exists which says that the input norms that are required by the Right to Education Act have any impact on learning outcomes as such. From the research that is available and I think CCS has brought out a paper on it.

There is very minimal impact on how the impact, the input norms prescribed by the Right to Education Act having any impact whatsoever on the learning outcomes. So if so, what is the requirement of all these input norms, especially when they are proving a deterrent to further additions to capacity? First of all, congratulations. Wonderful talk with the set of data, etc.

I really, really enjoyed it. One clarification question I had in one of the first, third slide or something where there was minority status of couple of states and at one place it says Christianity with a question mark. So that was my clarification.

In terms of other questions and the school closure thing that also picked up, I understand that there was consolidation of the schools also specifically coming from Rajasthan but that is happening in government. I think what you mentioned about the school closure of private schools, which is different from the consolidation thing. And the second clarificatory question is at one point of time you talked about that 83, around 83% of private schools are minority schools.

No, no. I didn't say that. I said that 80% of the schools are government schools.

If we take 3% of minority which includes your religious minority as well as the Hindu linguistic minority. So 83% of schools actually go out of, exempted from our team. You got it right? That's what I meant.

They are exempted from the norms. Otherwise the data which she has presented, which is available from MHRD website, all those schools should have closed down actually. Yes, exactly.

See, they have no limit to compliance. Your private, budget private schools have to comply and within 3 years they have to comply. That's the difference.

They don't. They don't. And they are actually exempted when it comes to infrastructure.

I'll show you, you came midway and you didn't see my earlier slides. The whole point is that. That's what we are all discussing this year.

If it was 97% following and 3% minority, we could have probably gotten away with it. The reason why we are discussing it here is because of that. Thank you.