Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (RTE) is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted on 4 August 2009, which describes the modalities of the importance of free and compulsory education for children between the age of 6 to 14 years in India under Article 21A of the Indian Constitution.

Quotes

• All religious schools are equal, but some are less equal than others. This paraphrasing of George Orwell’s parodic commandment typifies the thinking of the State when it comes to Hindu-run schools and educational institutions. The Right to Education Act, or the RTE, is the proverbial Moses staff that makes sure this commandment is obeyed.
  • (2023.) Hindus in Hindu Rashtra : Eighth-Class Citizens and Victims of State-Sanctioned Apartheid. by Anand Ranganathan chapter 4

• To summarise the chain of events, the government applies RTE rules selectively to Hindu-run schools, orders them to maintain a 25 per cent EWS quota, does not provide fee reimbursement on time—so much so that back in 2019, as many as 4,000 schools threatened to go on a strike against the delays in fee reimbursement.” Unconcerned, governments threaten schools and blackmail them with land occupancy provisions just to escape paying the reimbursement. Schools are forced to hike fees for all pupils in order to escape debt and closure; the fee increase forces Hindu parents to shift their children to other schools. More and more Hindu parents take their children away from Hindu schools and these children are then welcomed by schools run by minorities, and by virtue of the religious obligations and directive principles of the Constitution laid down for the believers, where preaching, proselytisation and conversion are religious duties, these children are inevitably, sometimes subtly, sometimes directly, put under pressure to convert. Meanwhile, Hindu schools are forced to close down. A recent report estimates that the RTE is responsible for the closure of more than 10,000 Hindu-run schools.
  • (2023.) Hindus in Hindu Rashtra : Eighth-Class Citizens and Victims of State-Sanctioned Apartheid. by Anand Ranganathan chapter 4

• But in terms of discrimination at once casual and concrete, very few acts match up to the RTE. The Act was passed by the Congress-led UPA government back in 2009. Tellingly, it remains in force in the present-day Hindu Rashtra. Simply put, the RTE continues to destroy Hindu schools and institutions.
  • (2023.) Hindus in Hindu Rashtra : Eighth-Class Citizens and Victims of State-Sanctioned Apartheid. by Anand Ranganathan chapter 4