India's New Mandate against Economic Apartheid in Schools

Abstract

In most countries, children attend the common neighbourhood school, especially at the compulsory stage. In India however, in keeping with its highly stratified and hierarchically oriented society, schools and parents in India tend to choose each other based largely on socio-economic criteria. India’s new law on right to education attempts to put an end to this socio economic segregation by mandating the admission and free education of children from economically weaker sections in all private schools. This paper attempts to show that social mixing is still contested in India despite an egalitarian Constitution and a history of past policy attempts at social reconstruction. India’s new law too on right to education was also challenged unsuccessfully by private schools, but this paper points out that promising developments and sentiments indicate new optimism for the end of economic apartheid in schooling in India.