Why rural India still has poor access to quality education?

Reasons include poor school infrastructure, poor access to toilets, sanitation facilities, teacher absenteeism … ironically, it’s been almost a decade of the passing of the RTE Act

India has a positive demographic opportunity, with half of its population in the working-age group. Needless to say, education is tool required to realise this demographic potential. Along with childhood nutrition, healthcare and good mentoring, quality schooling forms the basis of ensuring all-round development of a person.

Quality of education depends on infrastructure such as classrooms, water and sanitation facilities, availability of electricity, provision for digital learning, sports equipment and facilities, availability of chairs and desks, and softer elements such as presence of school staff, professional competencies of teachers, access to books and learning materials, among others.

The density of schools in rural India and teacher-student ratio have both improved, and enrolment ratio has shown a largely upward trend. This, coupled with sustained increase in education expenditure as a percentage of GDP, paints a positive picture for schooling. However, at the grass-roots level, the quality of rural education in India leaves much to be desired.

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