Indian Education Goes to Hell... In a Lamborghini

I received a letter from my child’s school stating that the fees will scale up very high this year as the Right To Education (RTE) is now in force. Why? Well, read on...

The Government of India (GOI) enacted a law called “Right to Education”.  This law forces all schools, public and private, to enrol children from economically deprived backgrounds to the school.  The school must provide free education to these children.  This Honorable Supreme Court of India (HSCI) has upheld the constitutional validity of this law.

What a tragedy.

India’s most annoying finance minister, Mr P Chidambaram, introduced an education tax in 2004.  Then he introduced a Higher Secondary education tax in the next year or so.  This tax was collected so that the government to could spend money on education.  The nation had to pay it as a tax.  The GOI then drowned billions of rupees in a badly managed scheme called the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA).

Then, our finance minister lost all fiscal discipline and set off a loan waiver scheme that destroyed India’s finances. Then, the GOI decided to enlist itself in the Guinness Book of World Records for enacting the most insane law on Planet Earth – Retrospective taxation enacted in 2012 but with effect from 1947.  The Indian Rupee crashed as foreign investment dried out. Then, the UPA realized that they have done to this country what Hitler did to Poland and soon decided that they will need to pursue mindless social policies in order to be in government and be somewhat relevant in the 2014 elections.

Then, they brought in the Right to Education.  Here are the problems:

The GOI has been collecting and education tax for 10 years for the purposes of Education.  The GOI has achieved pittance in comparison to the funds they have collected.  Why should private schools pay for what is clearly a failure on the part of GOI?  Is this incident not just another tax on the people of India?  I mean, the people have already paid an education tax.

The RTE is primarily the responsibility of the schools in India.  Neither the GOI nor the HSCI have enacted any rules that will prevent the Schools from passing on the buck to the other 75% of the students.  Is this fair?  Is this right?  Is this moral?  Well it is not – but it is legal, unfortunately.

Indian education will suffer.  No doubt.  It is tempting to believe that the UPA government created this entire mess.  It is so to an extent.  However, the opposition, which will soon come to further govern and ruin this country, has allowed this to happen as anything to the contrary would have compromised its vote bank.

Indians must work harder and save more money.  Then... send your children abroad for a good quality education. Then let them stay here and have their offspring in that country.  This is the only way out of this maze.

© Nitesh Kotecha