In August 2009, the Right to Education Act was passed in the Indian Parliament with no debate, by the fewer than 60 members who happened to be attending the session that day. Not that the Act was an open-and-shut case: many critical issues, including who exactly would fund implementation of the new legislation, which promises free, compulsory elementary education, certainly warranted debate. For many, the most worrisome part of the Act, which came into effect on 1 April, is a clause that vests the ultimate funding responsibility with the state governments. Given the fiscal status of most of India's state governments, the worry now is that this single provision could quickly render the RTE Act irrelevant. Soon after notification of the bill, the chief ministers of both Uttar Pradesh and Bihar declared that they did not have the necessary funds for implementation. In the meantime, the recently passed central budget includes no financial commitment towards implementation. This would seem to suggest an imminent ramping-up of an already hotly contested model within the Indian education system: the outsourcing of responsibilities within the sector, including for teaching, to private entities, through so-called public-private partnerships.
It should be noted that the RTE Act has managed to change the language of the Indian education discourse from one of policy to one of rights – a notable achievement. At the same time, however, Clause 37 seems to take back this 'right', as it clearly prohibits legal proceedings against any government or school management with regard to anything done 'in good faith'. There are several other contentious issues involved, which deserved broader attention from Parliament. For instance, the legislation excludes children up to the age of six, and it is unclear as to whether those over 14 are covered, despite UN conventions that suggest that the definition of child should extend to 18 years of age.
The Act further strengthens the current unequal multi-tiered schooling structures, which include private and various types of government schools offering vastly differing qualities of education, and which have been widely criticised for fostering inequity. As cost-cutting measures in recent years, states have been changing policies of appointment of permanent teachers, instead choosing to appoint teachers on a contractual basis (generally known as 'para-teachers'), often under exploitative terms and conditions. In the Act, there is no indication of doing away with such policies to set uniform salary norms and working conditions at par with other professions, instead leaving payment decisions with the 'appropriate governments and the local authorities'. Indeed, one of the most disconcerting aspects of the RTE Act is that it shows little faith in teachers – only foreseeing the possibility of teacher 'committing default in performance of duties' and thus requiring disciplinary action.
A recent study of 50 schools from across Madhya Pradesh could not find a single institution that had all permanent teachers – they were a 'dying cadre', researchers were told. During the 1990s, MP argued that reaching all settlements for education would be too expensive, and so instead started a programme called the Education Guaranteed Scheme (EGS), staffed by poorly paid para-teachers called 'gurujis'. Today, the gurujis are still paid a miserly INR 2500 per month; after working for three years, gurujis can be upgraded to a consolidated pay of INR 4500-5500, but are still not entitled to other benefits, not even paid leave. Consequently, in most EGS schools, one or two teachers receive a monthly salary of upwards of INR 17,000, while the rest are receiving consolidated amounts of as low as INR 2500, for doing the same work. This has vitiated the school environment, leading to further deterioration in the quality of teaching. According to a December 2009 news report, lakhs of para-teachers have recently been appointed across the Indian landscape, from Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to Madhya Pradesh and Orissa.