Authors: Stuti Rangappa , Tarini Aleti

Abstract

India made education a fundamental right in 2009 through the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act. Sixteen years later, millions of children in rural government schools cannot read, calculate or even hold the state accountable for either failure. The Act promised them quality education. What it delivered was only enrollment.

Arguments presented in this paper address the gap between promises and reality as not simply a failure of governance but of legislation. Through a doctrinal socio-legal methodology drawing on ASER Reports (2014–2024) and UDISE+ Annual Reports (2020–2024), it identifies three structural loopholes in the Act: a compliance framework that exempts the very schools it should govern most strictly, a complete silence on what children must actually learn and an enforcement mechanism that places the burden of accountability on those least equipped to bear it.