An article titled ” Class Struggle : India’s Experiment in Schooling Tests Rich and Poor ” by Geeta Anand in the Wall Street Journal dated June 4-5 2011 brings up a painful paradox from the Indian experiment following the passing of the RTE [Right to Education] Act last year . The focus on the plight of poor parents and their children in coping with the environment in the private schools where they get entry through a quota system with fee reimbursement by the government is disturbing , to say the least . Both the child and his parents go through a cultural shock when they interact socially with parents and children from the affluent society who form the majority in private schools . The interesting part [ but on expected lines ] is the discomfort felt by the parents and children from the rich segment in such schools when exposed to this experiment in social engineering .
In the US , there are no poor children in any private school as they cannot just afford it and there is no quota system . But the public schools where any one who pay taxes is entitled for free admission are well equipped to provide quality education and if any affluent family avoids the public schools for fear of undesirable social mixing , it is their problem .
So what has gone wrong in the Indian experiment ? – Have we put the cart before the horse in our eagerness to jump start the system following the enactment ? – or did we miss the social dimension of a cast ridden society and its reaction to this mixing altogether ?
There is no easy answer – and the solution lies in revamping the standard of public schools through government funding to such an extent that they become the benchmarks for quality education in India . India needs more such public schools and a fee structure on a sliding scale can be worked out linked to the earning power of the parents , keeping education free of cost to the real poor . This will also take care of any budgetary constraints in implementing the scheme .