Today, 3,494,520 children are out of school, due to the fact that 19,414 private schools across 17 states have been closed or issued notice for closurefor not fulfilling the input-centric norms laid down by RTE (such asinfrastructure and teacher salaries). These schools are primarily private, low-fee schools that cater to the poorer sections of society. As research has shown, these schools often deliver better learning outcomes than government schools, and do so at a per-child cost that is much lower than what the government spends in public schools. 

By closing down these schools, children across India are being denined access to good quality education of their choice and therefore, the purpose and spirit of the RTE is being undermined.

Unfortunately, the RTE focuses on input-based norms instead of learning outcome based norms!

More than 1100 private schoolsin Punjab, 700 schools in Haryana, 400 private schools in Andhra Pradesh, nother 400 in Tamil Nadu have been shut down for non-compliance with infrastructure norms such as all-weather building, classroom size, library etc.  These norms have huge cost implications for budget private schools and the children studying in these schools. If these schools undertake capital expenditure to meet the norms, they have to increase their fees several-fold making them unaffordable. These schools cater to the poorest of the poor, often having fees of INR 200-600 per month, operating at one-third the cost of government schools.

Gujarat gives 85% weight to learning outcomes and extra-curricular outcomes for  all schools recognition and the same is applicable to government schools.

WE DEMAND THAT SECTION 18 AND 19 OF THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION ACT, 2009 AND ITS SCHEDULE BE AMENDED TO ENSURE THAT ALL SCHOOLS ARE ASSESSED AND RECOGNISED ON THE BASIS OF THEIR LEARNING OUTCOMES, AND GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS ARE SUBJECT TO THE SAME NORMS AND STANDARDS THAT ARE APPLICABLE TO PRIVATE SCHOOLS.