In a government primary school in rural Rajasthan, ask fifth-graders to subtract two three-digit numbers. The ASER 2022 report found that only 17.3 percent could get the answer right.

The classroom will be full, the register will show near-universal enrollment, and the children will have uniforms, textbooks, and a midday meal. 

What they will not have, in the overwhelming majority of cases, is the arithmetic a ten-year-old is supposed to know. 

This is the difference that lies underneath most discussions about Indian education: schooling has spread with astonishing speed, while learning has stayed behind.

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, passed by the UPA-II government in August 2009 and effective from April 2010, promised free schooling to children between six and fourteen. Political parties of all colours put quality education somewhere in their manifestos. 

The disparity between that promise and the classroom in Rajasthan is the shape of the system itself, rather than an accident of implementation.

Consider what happens once a family has money. 

English-medium schools, private tutors, computers, internet access, and parents who themselves went to college are not neutral........

© Kashmir Observer