INTRODUCTION –

Mahatma Gandhi rightly said, “By education, I mean an all-round drawing out of the best in
the child and man’s body, mind, and spirit.” EDUCATION IS ESSENTIAL TO HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT. Any country's future is determined by the type of its educational system.
Despite the fact that members of the constituent assembly recognised the necessity of
universal education, they were unable to implement it owing to a lack of resources. It was
mentioned in the Directive Principles of State Policy, but not as a basic right. Education is a
great instrument for people and children who are economically and socially oppressed to rise
out of poverty and fully participate as citizens. The duty to offer basic education for those
who have not finished elementary school is also part of the right to education. In addition to
these rules on access to education, the right to education includes the need to eliminate
discrimination at all levels of the educational system, to establish minimum standards, and to
promote educational quality.

The court establishes a clear link between the right to education and the right to life, holding
that in order to live a meaningful life, a person need vital rights that lead to a life of dignity,
and education is required to acquire such a life. As a result, the court determined that the
right to education is a precondition for the right to life, and that it must be provided by the
state. The Supreme Court upheld this ruling in, holding that the right to education was
inextricably linked to the right to life. It did, however, express its unwillingness to guarantee
this right at all levels, instead mandating just basic education for children under the age of 14.

The state amended the Constitution in 2002, adding a new article 21A, entitled "The right to
education for youth aged 6 to 14 years (the 86th Amendment). The government then passed
the RTE Act in 2009 in order to fulfil its article 21A commitments. This Act requires all
relevant parties, including parents, society, educational institutions, and central governments,
to do their share in providing free and compulsory education to children aged 6 to 14.

Organisations around the world striving for promotion of Right to

Education are –

 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

 United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
 World Bank.
 International Labour Organisation.

MAJOR COMPONENTS OF RIGHT TO EDUCATION ACT,2009

 In India, children aged 6 to 14 have the right to free and compulsory education in any
neighbourhood school until they complete elementary education.
 Until the end of primary school, no kid shall be held back, expelled, or compelled to pass
a board examination.
 Any kid over the age of six who has not been admitted to any school or who has not
completed his or her elementary education will be placed in a class that is appropriate for
his or her age.
 Proof of age for admission: For the purposes of admission to elementary school, a child's
age shall be determined using a birth certificate issued in compliance with the Provisions
of Birth, Deaths, and Marriages Registration Act 1856, or any other document that may
be required. A child's admittance to a school should not be refused due to a lack of
evidence of age.
 A youngster who completes his or her primary education will receive a certificate.
 In all private institutions, there will be a 25% reserve for economically disadvantaged
areas in admission to Class I.
 The most crucial goal is to raise educational standards.
 Within five years, school instructors will be required to get a professional degree or risk
losing their jobs.
 Every three years, school infrastructure must be rectified, otherwise recognition will be
revoked.
 The financial burden will be shared by the state and the federal government.

BENEFITS OF RIGHT TO EDUCATION ACT, 2009

Right To Education is a component of the Directive Principles of State Policy outlined in

Article 45 of the Constitution, which is included in Chapter 4 of the Constitution.
Furthermore, the rights granted in Chapter 4 are not enforceable. For the first time in India's
history, we have made this right enforceable by including it as Article 21 in Chapter 3 of the
Constitution. This ensures that children's right to education is protected as a basic right.

FALLS OF ARTICLE 21 A
Article 21A now extends the basic right to education to children aged 6 to 14, i.e. pupils in
Classes I through VIII exclusively.

The main drawback of this privilege is that it excludes children aged 0 to 6 years old as well
as children aged 14 to 18 years old from its scope.

It is a scientifically proven fact that a child's earliest nurturing years of 3-4 years, which is
nursery age, are critical for cognitive development, yet RTE fails to expand its reach to pre-
primary level.

Excluding young people between the ages of 14 and 18 from the scope of 21A creates an odd
and unwanted divide in the country, since young people between these ages have nowhere to
go. On the one hand, Article 21A of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child guarantees free and compulsory schooling until the age of fourteen. On the other hand,
the Juvenile Justice Act of 2000, which protects and cares for children, prohibits minors
under the age of 18 from working. According to estimates, there are about 101 million people
aged 14 to 18 in the United States today.

In terms of practicalities, what kind of future will a kid have after finishing his eighth grade if
he is unable to afford the financial means to continue his education since the RTE does not
recognise the right to education beyond this standard?

Today, each and every occupational proficiency programme necessitates the completion of
specific educational and age requirements. Employers are hesitant to grant work assignments
to minors under the age of eighteen.

Even in May of this year, the Draft National Education Policy (DNEP) advocated expanding
the right to free and compulsory education to include Early Childhood Care and Education
(ECCE) as well as upper secondary education. It proposes to include children from the age of
three to the age of eighteen in the scope of 21A, as it is critical for all students to have
meaningful, equal access to excellent education.

Article 21A exempts minority schools from its coverage.

The most serious endeavour to secure free and obligatory education for everyone was
supposed to be the passage of Article 21A. This was first harmed in the case of Society for
Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan v. Union of India 2012, but it has now been further
harmed by the inaccuracy of the judgement in Pramati Educational and Cultural Trust v.
Union of India, where the court weakened the object of Article 21A by binding it to Article
30.

PRAMATI JUDGEMENT –

The Pramati decision means that all minority schools will be free to charge whatever fees
they want, use whatever admission criteria they want, and therefore discriminate against any
class of students, while remaining unaccountable to the court or to their angry parents.

The following are the key difficulties with the Pramati decision:

 It has inflated the prestige of Article 30 to the point that it transcends most essential
liberties, even surpassing Article 21, and has placed it on a pedestal. According to the
court's reasoning in the case, all of our constitution's fundamental rights are subject to
certain "reasonable constraints," but Article 30 stands alone.
 The structure of the constitution is not justified by this Court's decision. Its view of a
minority school is that adding even a small proportion of non-minority pupils to their
schools will neutralise the 'minority character' of their educational institutions.
 Minorities rights under Article 30 are not unaffected by a variety of restrictions, as has
been recognised in prior instances such as TMA Pai.

T.M.A. Pai Foundation & Others vs State of Karnataka & Others 

TMA Pai claimed that admitting a small number of non-minority students to a minority
school would not detract from the school's minority character, and such inclusion is explicitly
discussed in Articles 29 and 30. However, the court's judgement has barred any non-minority
students from marginalised communities from attending minority schools, citing it as illegal.
When considering the goals of the RTE's inception, the ridiculousness of this decision
becomes apparent. It began not only to educate the children of the impoverished, but also to
reveal to the advantaged elements of society the harsh truth of inequity in the country by
forcing them to share space with the disadvantaged kids. This includes ethnic schools in
order to aid individuals in the lower classes. There is no question that the founders had
generous principles in mind when drafting Article 30, but I am confident that they did not
intend to undermine the other aims as well.

The space for the right to education appears to conflict with Article 30's specific viewpoints
on minorities rights to construct and govern educational institutions of their choosing.
However, it must be remembered that this privilege does not supersede all others. Article 30
gives you the power to run a school, but not to mismanage it in any way. Laws requiring
sufficient sanitation and sanitization, as well as up-to-date academic qualifications, should
apply equally to minority institutions. In addition, a minority school (government-aided)
cannot discriminate against pupils in admissions on the basis of caste, religion, language, or
race, according to Article 29 clause (2).

Apart from the 25% reservation in section 12(1)(c), the RTE Act also stipulates rules on
pupil-teacher ratio, infrastructure inspections, ban on screentests, and capitation fee, which
the Pramati decision fails to examine. Rather than killing the "minority spirit," these policies
value both students and society.

Then it fails to recognise that government-aided minority schools have a distinct status than
unassisted minority schools, and are more obedient to such legislation. As a result of a
defective decision by the highest court, the overall legal situation becomes ambiguous. To
make the right to education and the right to minorities simultaneously enforceable, a legally
acceptable balance must be struck. The right to education should be granted to everyone,
everywhere.

Mohini Jain v. State of Karnataka

FACTS –

Miss Mohini Jain, a resident in Uttar Pradesh, applied to enrol in a course at Sri Siddhartha
Medical College, a private medical college in Karnataka. The college requested a deposit of
Rs. 60,000 for tuition fees for the first year and a bank guarantee to cover the fees for the
remaining years. Jain and her family did not have the means to pay the requested sum, and
the private medical college denied her admission to the course. Jain filed a petition with the
Supreme Court of India against the Karnataka government, challenging the notification
permitting the private medical college to charge a higher tuition fee to students not admitted
to government seats than those admitted to government seats. The Karnataka Medical
Colleges Association and the Sri Siddhartha Medical College were also added as
respondents.

ISSUES –
The case presented three main questions before the Supreme Court: 1. Whether a right to
education is guaranteed under the Indian Constitution. 2. If so, whether allowing private
schools to charge capitation fees violates this right. 3. Whether charging capitation fee in
educational institutions violates Article 14 of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees equal
protection of the laws.

DECISION –

The Supreme Court first held that, although the right to education was not explicitly
guaranteed by the Constitution, it is essential to the realisation of the fundamental right to life
and human dignity under Article 21. In addition, the Court found that “It [is] clear that the
framers of the Constitution made it obligatory for the State to provide education for its
citizens.” In its reasoning, the Court cited the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and a
number of cases that held that the right to life encompasses more than “life and limb”,
including necessities of life, nutrition, shelter and literacy.

Turning to the issue of the fees, the Court struck down the payment of capitation fees as a
condition for entry into any educational institution, whether public or private. According to
the decision, access to education must be realised for all people regardless of income. If the
State decides to discharge its obligations under the Constitution through private institutions,
these institutions must abide by the same constitutional requirements as the State. Therefore,
because capitation fees make access to education based on income rather than merit, they
were deemed to be contrary to the right to education, and arbitrary and in violation of the
right to equal protection of the laws under Article 14 of the Constitution. Finally, the Court
held that the fees charged by the Sri Siddhartha Medical College under the government
notification were capitation fees, and not tuition fees. Therefore, the charging of the fee was
also in violation of the Karnataka Educational Institutions (Prohibition of Capitation Fee)
Act.

Unni Krishnan v. State of Andhra Pradesh -

In this case, the Supreme Court confirmed the decision in Mohini Jain v Karnataka – namely,
that the right to education flows from the right to life and obliges the State to provide basic
education to all citizens up to the age of 14. However, the decision limited the right to higher
levels of education, which is subject to the economic capacity and development of the State.
The Court states: “We cannot believe that any state would say it need not provide education
to its people even within the limits of its economic capacity and development. It goes without
saying that the limits of economic capacity are, ordinarily speaking, matters within the
subjective satisfaction of the state… The right to education further means that a citizen has
the right to call upon the state to provide educational facilities to him within the limits of its
economic capacity and development. By saying so we are not transferring Article 41 from
Part IV to Part III we are merely relying upon Article 41 to illustrate the content of the right
of the right to education flowing from Article 21.” Years later, in 2009, the Indian
government amended the constitution by inserting Article 21 -A, which more explicitly
protects the right to free and compulsory education for children between the ages of six and
fourteen.

CONCLUSION –

Every generation looks up to the next, hoping that they will construct a nation that is better
than the current one. As a result, every nation's first focus should always be education, which
empowers future generations. The right to education can today be implemented on a national
basis only through compulsory education, or, to put it another way, through free obligatory
primary education. However, due to widespread poverty and societal biases, India's efforts to
build an educational system that provides complete access, equality, and high-quality
education have fallen short. Another source of concern is the inability to control dropout rates
among underprivileged groups of the population.