The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 has its fair share of critics, including legislators and government school teachers who claim that the mandatory 25% reservation of seats in private schools for underprivileged children has led to a decline in government school enrolment. The end result, they argue, is a drain in the government’s budgetary resources.
Data collected over the years shows that only a small percentage of the overall budget of the Department of Primary and Secondary Education was being spent towards reimbursing private schools for the reservation of seats.
More importantly, the rate of decline in government school enrolments in class one in Karnataka was steeper in the years preceding the implementation of the RTE Act, though there has been a steady decline with each passing year.
